HD 

8070 


UC-NRLF 


Brownson's  Defence. 

DEFENCE 


OF   THE   ARTICLE   ON  THE 


LABORING  CLASSES. 


FROM   THE 


BOSTON  QUARTERLY  REVIEW. 


By    O.    a.    BROWNSON 


"~^rV 


BOSTON: 

BENJAMIN    H.    GREENE 

1840. 


Entered  according  to  the  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1840,  by 

Benjamin  H.  Gkeene, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of 

Massachusetts. 


•    •    •    ' 


CAMBRIDGE    PRESS: 
MBTCALP,     TOERT,     AND     BALLOU. 


ivil80579 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


j^m. 


http://www.archive.org/details/brownsonsdefenceOObrowrich 


DEFENCE. 


As  a  general  rule  we  never  reply  to  what  is  written 
or  said  against  ourselves  personally,  or  the  views  we 
from  time  to  time  put  forth.  We  adopt  this  rule,  be- 
cause we  never  have,  in  what  we  write,  any  regard  to 
our  own  personal  reputation.  We  write  not  for  fame; 
and  we  cannot  believe  it  a  matter  of  any  moment  to 
the  world,  what  estimation  we  may  be  held  in  by  the 
public  generally.  We  manage  our  own  conduct  ac- 
cording to  our  judgment  or  inclination,  without  dis- 
quieting ourselves  in  the  least  with  the  opinions  which 
others  may  entertain  of  it.  If  it  suits  them,  it  is  well; 
if  it  does  not  suit  them,  it  is  perhaps  just  as  well. 

We  also  adopt  this  rule,  because  we  are  never  so 
desirous  of  establishing  any  set  of  opinions,  as  we  are 
of  stimulating  to  free  and  fearless  inquiry  into  all 
great  and  interesting  subjects.  We  believe  that  we 
love  truth  belter  than  we  do  our  own  opinions  ;  and 
if  truth  be  elicited,  we  care  little  what  becomes  of  the 
opinions  we  may  have  set  forth.  We  therefore  throw 
out  our  opinions  freely,  perhaps  rashly,  and  leave 
them  to  be  canvassed  by  the  public  mind,  confident 
that  in  the  long  run  they  will  receive  all  the  merit 
they  deserve. 

But  as  we  wish  to  give  with  fuller  details  our  views 
on  several  important  matters,  we  shall  in  this  instance 
depart  from  our  general  rule,  and  reply  at  some  length 
to  the  principal  objections  we  have  heard  urged 
against  the  article  on  the  Laboring  Classes,  published 
in  this  Journal  for  July  last.  These  objections  we 
1 


^i:  .,:.' '  Responsibility  to  Party. 

shall  generalize,  and  discuss  without  any  reference  to 
the  individuals  or  publications  that  have  urged  them. 

I.  One  objection  urged  against  us  is,  not  that  the 
doctrines  of  our  article  are  unsound,  but  that  now  is 
not  the  time  for  putting  them  forth.  The  public  mind, 
it  is  said,  is  not  prepared  for  them,  and  therefore  will 
not  give  them  a  favorable  reception.  They  will  bring 
much  reproach  upon  him  who  puts  them  forth,  and 
that  reproach  will  necessarily  fall,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  upon  his  friends,  and  the  political  party  with 
which  he  may  be  associated. 

This  objection  resolves  itself  into  two ;  one  relating 
to  the  proper  time  for  bringing  out  one's  ideas  ;  and 
the  other  to  the  obligation  of  a  man  to  withhold  what 
he  believes  to  be  great  truths,  for  fear  of  compromit- 
ting  a  party  with  which  he  may  sometimes  act.  We 
shall  consider  the  last  first. 

1.  For  ourselves,  we  acknowledge  no  party  organi- 
zation as  obligatory,  no  party  usages  that  we  are 
bound  to  support.  Party  with  us  is  never  supported 
for  its  own  sake,  and  claims  our  attention  never  as  an 
end,  but  simply  as  a  means  to  an  end. 

Where  there  are  differences  of  opinions,  there  will 
be  different  parties.  A  certain  portion  of  our  citizens 
believe  the  public  good  requires  one  set  of  political 
measures  to  be  adopted  ;  another  portion  decide  in 
favor  of  another  set  of  measures.  Those  who  favor 
the  one  set  constitute  by  that  fact  a  party  ;  those  who 
favor  another  set  constitute  another  party.  This  is  all 
the  parlyism  we  recognise  as  legitimate.  We  approve 
no  measure  because  it  is  the  measure  of  this  or  that 
party.  It  is  not  the  party  that  recommends  the  meas- 
ure, but  the  measure  that  recommends  the  party. 
Those  who  approve  the  measure  unite  to  carry  it,  and 
act  as  a  party  ;  but  they  are  bound  together  as  a  party 
only  by  the  fact,  that  they  have  a  common  end  in  view. 
We  have  supported  the  democratic  party,  on  some  oc- 
casions, because  we  have  approved  its  measures  ;  but 
in  so  doing  wc  have  never  given  it  any  pledge  of  in- 
discriminate support, —  no  assurance   that  we  would 


Responsibility  to  Party.  5 

support  it,  let  it  put  forth  what  measures  it  might,  or 
that  we  would  refrain  from  suggesting  any  measures^ 
which  it  might  not  be  prepared  to  approve.  We  come 
to  it  as  freemen,  and  give  it  a  free  voluntary  support 
where  we  believe  it  right;  but  we  reserve  to  ourselves 
the  same  freedom  of  thought  and  action  we  should 
have,  had  we  nothing  to  do  with  it.  We  have 
surrendered  nothing  to  it ;  given  it  no  right  over  us  ; 
and  therefore  no  claim,  as  a  party,  to  chastise  us  when  / 
we  offend  it.  These  remarks  will  disclose  our  general 
views  in  regard  to  responsibility  to  party. 

Now,  we  apprehend  that  a  doctrine,  opposite  to  this, 
prevails  to  a  considerable  extent.  We  think  that 
many  among  us  would  organize  a  party,  and  make  its 
members  believe  and  feel  that  their  chief  merit,  in  a 
political  sense,  consists  in  fidelity  to  it.  Their  maxim 
is,  "  Go  with  your  party.  Everything  in  a  free  country 
must  be  managed  by  party.  Be  therefore  true  to  your 
party.  Adhere  to  its  usages,  and  support  its  meas- 
ures and  its  nominations."  The  men  who  wish  to 
stand  high  with  their  party,  therefore,  consult  not 
what  is  truth,  but  what  is  the  creed  of  the  party ;  not 
what  is  true  policy,  but  what  policy  the  party  will  sus- 
tain ;  not  who  are  the  best  and  fittest  men  to  be  voted 
for,  but  who  will  best  secure  the  suffrages  of  the  party. 
This  is  the  popular  doctrine  of  party,  and  a  doctrine, 
which,  we  need  not  say,  we  utterly  detest,  let  it  be 
sustained  by  whom  or  by  what  party  it  may. 

This  doctrine  makes  the  support  of  party  the  encr 
and  not  the  means  ;  reverses  the  natural  order  of  y 
things,  and  leads  to  the  most  mischievous  results.  It  / 
strikes  at  the  very  foundation  of  freedom,  by  render- 
ing every  individual  a  slave  to  his  party.  No  matter 
what  our  convictions  are,  no  matter  what  our  wishes 
are  for  our  country  or  our  race,  we  must  lock  them 
up  in  our  own  bosoms,  till  our  party  in  its  wisdom  is 
prepared  to  receive  them,  and  to  act  on  them.  Nor  is 
this  all.  Let  it  once  be  understood  that  the  members 
of  a  party  are  to  support  it,  whatever  the  measures  it 
puts  forth,  and  that  the  great  mass  of  the  individuals 
composing  it  are  never   to  venture  any  suggestions  on 


6  Responsibility  to  Party. 

their  individual  responsibility,  and  you  leave  the  whole 
party  to  be  wielded  according  to  the  caprice  or  the 
interest  of  the  some  half  a  dozen  individuals,  who  can 
adroitly  place  themselves  at  its  head.  A  party  in  this 
case  is  merely  an  army  under  the  control  and  ready  to 
follow  the  beck  of  a  few,  perhaps  designing,  unprinci- 
pled chiefs.  The  way  is  thus  paved  for  introducing 
and  screening  the  grossest  corruption,  —  corruption 
which  shall  prey  upon  the  vitals  of  the  body  politic, 
and  threaten  its  very  existence. 

But  if  we  are  to  support  measures  because  they  are 
the  measures  of  our  party,  and  not  the  party  because 
it  supports  our  measures,  who,  we  would  ask,  is  to 
determine  what  shall  be  the  measures  of  our  party? 
Who  shall  dictate  its  measures,  and  authoritatively 
declare  its  creed  ?  The  demagogues  at  its  head,  who 
are  looking  only  to  their  own  aggrandizement  ?  —  indi- 
viduals who  hold  the  party  merely  as  the  instruments  of 
their  will  ?  So,  doubtless,  the  ambitious  and  designing 
would  have  it ;  but  not  so  would  a  true  democrat  have 
it.  No  democrat  can  consent  to  let  half  a  dozen  men 
cut  and  dry  the  policy  they  may  choose,  and  then  de- 
mand his  support  on  peril  of  being  branded  as  a 
renegade  if  he  withhold  it.  He  knows  no  dictators  of 
opinions.  He  asks  not  what  this  president  or  that 
governor,  this  senator  or  that  representative  believes, 
in  order  to  ascertain  what  it  will  answer  for  him  to 
advance.  He  makes  up  his  mind  from  the  best  lights 
within  his  reach,  and  acts  accordingly. 

The  mere  success  of  a  party  is  never  a  legitimate 
end  to  be  sought.  No  man  then  owes  any  allegiance 
to  a  party  as  such.  He  then  needs  never  ask 
whether  the  views  he  puts  forth  will,  or  will  not, 
compromit  his  party.  He  is  simply  bound,  according 
to  the  best  of  his  judgment  and  ability,  to  refrain  from 
aught  that  may  injure  the  cause  he  has  at  heart ;  and 
if  the  present  success  of  any  given  party  be  indispen- 
sable to  the  success  of  that  cause,  then,  and  for  that 
reason  only,  should  he  refrain  from  doing  aught  to 
compromit  that  party.  But  we  know  so  little  of  what 
is  or  is  not  indispensable  to  the  success  of  any  great 


Responsibility  to  Party.  7 

cause,  we  are  such  poor  judges  of  what  is  expedient 
or  inexpedient,  that  the  wisest  way,  after  all,  is  to 
speak  out  what  we  honestly  believe  to  be  just  and 
true,  without  asking  whom  it  will  or  will  not  compro- 
mit.  Truth  and  justice  are,  so  far  as  we  have  been  able 
to  learn,  the  best  expedients.  Ask  not  then  how  what 
a  man  has  uttered,  will  affect  your  sect  or  your  party; 
but  merely  ask,  is  what  he  advocates  just  and  true  7 

We  have  made  these  remarks  to  show  what  is  the  ^ 
light  in  which  we  regard  fidelity  and  deference  to 
party.  We  owe  no  responsibility  to  party.  We  sus-  / 
tain  the  leading  measures  of  the  democratic  party, 
because  we  believe  them  essential  to  the  welfare  of 
the  country ;  we  sustain  the  democratic  party  gen- 
erally, because  it  is  through  that  party  we  hope  to 
realize  such  legislative  reforms,  as  are  needed  to  carry 
out  into  practice  the  great  doctrine  of  equality,  to 
which  the  American  people  stand  pledged.  So  far  as 
that  party  puts  forth  such  measures  as  we  approve,  we 
shall  support  it;  so  far  as  it,  in  our  judgment,  is  faith- 
ful to  American  principles,  it  may  always,  wherever 
We  are,  count  on  our  fidelity,  and  no  farther.  So  far 
as  it  concerns  political  action,  if  we  act  at  all,  we 
shall  probably  always  act  with  it,  as  our  sympathies 
are  not  likely  to  go  with  the  opposing  party. 

We  speak  here  of  action.  But  in  the  discussion 
of  principles,  in  putting  forth  measures,  we  pay  no 
regard  to  it ;  never  have  consulted,  and  never  shall 
consult  it.  Here  we  take  ground  above  all  party, 
above  the  people  even,  and  ask  simply  what  is  true  7 
what  is  right  7  what  ought  to  be  7  Here  we  follow  our 
own  convictions,  speak  from  our  own  minds,  without 
"  conferring  with  flesh  and  blood.''  We  here  aim  to 
exercise  that  freedom  of  mind,  that  "  soul-liberty," 
which  many  others  so  eloquently  defend.  For  our- 
selves, we  claim  the  right  of  free  thought,  and  free 
utterance.  We  rarely  undertake  to  defend  this  right ; 
we  exercise  it.  And  we  believe  it  the  duty  of  every  man 
to  exercise  it,  and  that  he  is  no  true  man  who  will  not 
exercise  it.  We  feel  nothing  but  pity  for  the  misera- 
ble coward,  who  dares  not  utter  a  thought,  till  he  has 


8  Responsibility  to  Party, 

obtained  the  license  of  his  sect,  his  school,  or  his 
party.  Away  with  such  abjectness.  Be  men,  think- 
ing your  own  thoughts,  and  speaking  your  own  words. 
No  sect  or  party  is  or  can  be  deserving  of  your  sup- 
port, that  requires  you  to  abandon  your  freedom  of 
mind,  or  to  suppress  the  utterance  of  your  own  honest 
convictions. 

2.  With  regard  to  the  objection,  that  now  is  not  the 
time  for  bringing  out  such  doctrines  as  we  have  ad- 
vanced, we  have  not  much  to  say.  If  now  is  not  the 
time,  it  must  be  either  because  there  are  more  im- 
portant matters  to  be  discussed ;  or  because  those 
doctrines  cannot  now  be  fairly  brought  out ;  or  be- 
cause their  utterance  at  this  time  may  bring  reproach 
upon  him  who  utters  them.  The  last  consideration  is 
purely  personal,  and  therefore  does  not  concern  the 
public.  A  man,  who  utters  a  doctrine,  is  or  ought  to 
be  prepared  to  brave  the  consequences  of  uttering  it. 
He,  who  can  be  deterred  from  publishing  a  truth 
through  fear  of  reproach,  is  a  coward,  a  traitor  to 
both  God  and  man,  and  has  no  claim  upon  our  sympa- 
thy or  respect.     We  shall  defend  no  such  man. 

As  it  concerns  the  second  consideration,  no  man 
can  tell  whether  his  doctrines  will  be  comprehended 
or  not,  tiirhe  has  published  them.  As  a  general  rule 
it  is  always  safe  for  a  man  to  infer,  that  what  he  can 
fully  comprehend  himself,  may  be  communicated  to  his 
contemporaries.  It  is  not  well  for  a  man  to  believe 
himself  so  far  superior  to  those  around  him,  that  his 
thoughts,  clearly  uttered,  must  be  unintelligible  to 
them. 

There  may  be  more  important  matters  than  those 
we  discussed  in  our  article  on  the  Laboring  Classes. 
Of  that  each  one  must  judge  for  himself  The  less 
should  undoubtedly  be  postponed  to  the  greater.  But 
what  seems  the  greater  to  one  mind,  may  seem  the 
less  to  another.  **•  But  just  at  this  time,  when  an 
important  election  is  pending,  it  was  injudicious  to 
start  a  new  and  exciting  topic  of  discussion."  Per- 
haps so.  But  we  have  never  believed  that  anything 
we  could  write  would  have  much  influence  on  an  elec- 


Responsibility  to  Party.  9 

tion  ;  and  we  are  sure  that  we  would  never  willingly 
triumph  in  an  election,  however  important  we  might 
regard  it,  if  our  triumph  could  be  endangered  by  the 
fearless  utterance  of  what  we  held  to  be  a  great  truth; 
although  the  application  of  that  truth  might  be  far  in  the 
distant  future.  A  triumph,  won  by  the  suppression  of 
any  truth,  is  more  dishonorable  and  disastrous  than  a 
defeat.  _ 

The  proper  time  for  uttering  a  doctrine,  it  strikes  us, 
is  whenever  we  clearly  perceive  it,  and   are  fully  con- 
vinced of  its  truth  and  importance;  when  we  feel  it 
pressing  heavily  upon  our  hearts,  and  hear  it  in  loud 
and  earnest  tones  demanding    to   be    uttered.       The 
world  is   lying  in   wickedness  ;    great   social  wrongs 
obtain ;  man  is  everywhere  suffering  by   the  hand  of 
man  ;  and  what  are  they  doing,  who  should  be  bold 
and  invincible  Reformers  ?     They  are  trimming  their 
sails  to  the  breeze,  and  crying  out  to  him,  whose  soul 
burns  with  strong  desire  to  emancipate  his  brethren, 
"  Wait,  wait.    Now  is  not  the  time.     Four  months  and 
then  Cometh  the  harvest.    Be  prudent,  manage  adroitly. 
You  ruin  everything  by  going   too  fast.     Slacken  your 
pace."     Now,  we  have  heard   enough    of   this  timid 
counsel.    We  are  indignant  at  it;  and  in  the  language 
of  Jesus,  we   say,  "  Lift   up  your   eyes,  look  on   the 
fields  ;  for,  behold,  they  are  white  already  to  the  har- 
vest."    There  is  the  enemy,  fortifying  his  camp  and 
concentrating  his  forces ;  unfurl  your  banners  ;  let  the 
drums   beat ;    march,   rush,   storm  his   entrenchments, 
and  compel  him   to  surrender   at  discretion.     Always 
is  it  the  time  to  war  against  sin  and  Satan  ;  always  is 
it  the  time  to   proclaim  the  truth,  and  discomfit  error. 
A  plain,   open,   honest   avowal   of   truth  is   always 
the  shortest,  as   well   as   the  surest,  road   to  victory. 
In    a    nioral   war,    we   have    no   faith  in    stratagems.^ 
We  want  no  plotting  and  counter-plotting,  no  feints, 
no  ambuscades.     Raise  aloft,  and   give  to   the  breeze 
the  broad   banner  of  Truth.     With  it  you  may  march 
alone  and   single-handed   through  the   enemy's  camp, 
and  overcome  it.    Care  not  for  his  bullets.     They  may 
whistle  about  your  ears,  pierce  your  garments,   and 


10  opposition  to  Christianity, 

penetrate  your  body  even ;  but  they  cannot  wound 
you.  You  may  be  crushed  to  the  earth,  but  you  shall 
be  renewed  by  the  fall,  and  rise  with  fresh  courage 
and  energy  to  the  combat.  For,  carry  you  not  the 
banner  of  God  ?  And  does  God  need  to  plot,  mine, 
and  undermine,  in  order  to  gain  his  victories  ?  No. 
He  goes  forth  in  his  simple  majesty,  and  terror  seizes 
his  enemies  ;  their  souls  fail  them ;  and  they  are  as  so 
many  dead  men.  So  in  the  simple  majesty  of  truth 
should  all  go  forth,  who  would  redeem  the  world. 
Away,  then,  with  all  this  cant  about  time  and  place. 
Know  that  Truth  is  her  own  time  and  place.  Let  the 
world  but  see  her  face,  and  it  is  reconstructed  in  her 
image. 

If  the  doctrines  we  put  forth  in  our  article  on  the 
Laboring  Classes  were  true,  they  were  timely  put 
forth.  If  you  object  not  to  the  doctrines  them- 
selves, be  ashamed  to  object  to  the  time  when  they 
were  promulgated.  If  you  regard  them  as  untrue, 
unsound,  refute  them;  use  your  zeal  and  energy  in 
proving  them  false  ;  not  in  proving  their  publication 
inopportune.  Rely  upon  it,  that  such  doctrines  will 
always  be  inopportune  to  those  whom  they  indict ;  never 
to  any  others. 

II.  A  second  objection  urged  against  us  is,  that  we 
propose  to  abolish  Christianity.  This  objection  is 
founded  on  a  perversion  of  our  language,  and  is  war- 
ranted by  nothing  that  wc  have  ever  written  in  our 
Review.  Ten  years  ago  this  very  autumn,  we  publicly 
announced  our  conversion  to  the  Christian  Faith,  and 
since  then  we  have  uttered,  as  we  have  entertained, 
no  doubt  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian  Religion.  No 
man  in  this  community  has  preached  or  written  more, 
during  these  last  ten  years,  to  defend  Christianity, 
and  to  defend  it  not  only  against  the  Infidel,  but  also 
against  the  Church,  than  the  Editor  of  this  Review. 
It  would  therefore  be  much  more  modest  in  his  tradu- 
cers  to  distrust  their  own  interpretation  of  his  lan- 
guage, than  to  charge  him  with  hostility  to  Christi- 
Miity« 


Opposition  to  Christianity.  11 

1.  That  we  distinp^uish  between  the  Christianity  of 
the  Church,  and  the  Christianity  of  Christ,  that  we  hold 
the  former  in  low  esteem,  while  we  love  and  rever- 
ence the  latter,  we  have  no  disposition  to  deny.  We 
claim  the  right  of  interpreting  Christianity  for  our- 
selves, as  we  readily  concede  to  others,  and  to  the 
best  of  our  ability  defend  to  others,  their  right  to  in- 
terpret it  for  themselves.  That  our  interpretations 
are  not  precisely  orthodox,  may  very  possibly  be  true. 
To  a  large  portion  of  the  Christian  world  our  views 
are  doubtless  heretical.  After  the  manner  which 
many  call  heresy,  we  confess  that  we  worship  the 
God  of  our  fathers.  But  that  is  our  affair,  and  not 
theirs.  We  have  not  asked  them  to  mediate  between 
us  and  our  God,  nor  have  we  proposed  to  mediate 
for  them.  We  can  manage  the  matter  of  our  accep- 
tance with  our  Maker,  without  their  assistance,  as  they 
doubtless  can  that  of  theirs  without  ours.  And  yet,  as 
heretical  as  we  may  be,  our  writings  contain  distinct 
avowals  of  our  belief  in  the  divine  inspiration  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments ;  in  the  reality  of  the  Chris- 
tian Miracles  ;  the  Deity  of  Christ,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost;  in  the  Trinity;  the  Fail  of  Man,  and  his  cor- 
ruption by  Sin  ;  the  Atonement ;  Justification  by 
Faith;  Spiritual  Regeneration  ;  Immortality,  and  Re- 
wards and  Punishments  in  the  world  to  come. 
All  these  doctrines  have  been  distinctly  recognised 
as  truths,  and  commented  on  as  such,  in  some  one  or 
other  of  our  published  writings.  It  would  seem,  then, 
that  even  in  the  opinion  of  the  Christian  world  gen- 
erally, our  heresies  are  not  of  the  sort  termed  "  damn- 
able." 

Furthermore;  in  the  very  article  in  question,  w^e  say 
expressly,  that  "  We  are  Christians,  and  that  it  is 
only  by  following  out  the  Christian  law,  and  the  ex- 
ample of  the  early  believers,  that  we  can  hope  to 
effect  anything."     The  second  step  we  propose  in  the  \y' 

work  of  elevating   the  laboring  classes    is,  we  there  '^ 

say,  "  to  resuscitate  the  Christianity  of  Christ."     We 
must   then  be  pardoned,  if  we  entertain   no  great  re- 
spect for  those  pious  readers,  who  can  infer  from  our 
2 


1 


12  Opposition  to  Christianity. 

writings,  that  we  proposed  to  elevate  the  proletary  by 
destroying  Christianity. 

Christianity  we  have  always  spoken  of  as  friendly 
to,  as  commanding  even,  the  moral  and  social  eleva- 
I  tion  of  the  laboring  classes.  Democracy  we  have 
often  defined  to  be  nothing  but  the  application  of  the 
principles  of  the  Gospel  to  man's  social  and  political 
relations.  How  could  we,  then,  with  this  our  acknow- 
ledged view  of  Christianity,  seek  its  destruction  as  a 
means  of  effecting  the  social  reform  for  which  we  were 
rxontending  ?  All,  who  have. done  us  the  honor  to  read 
'  our  writings,  must  admit,  it  seems  to  us,  that  our 
great  object  has  all  along  been  to  Christianize  the 
democracy,  and  to  democratize,  if  we  may  use  the 
word,  the  Church.  We  found,  when  we  came  upon 
the  stage,  the  advocates  of  social  reform  at  war  with 
religion,  and  the  friends  of  religion  at  war  with  the 
social  reformers.  At  first,  we  fell  into  the  common 
error  of  believing  this  the  natural  state  of  things, 
and  accordingly  accepted  it,  and  joined  in  the  oppo- 
sition to  religion.  Subsequent  inquiry  convinced  us 
that  this  was  an  unnatural  state  of  things  ;  that  the 
hostility,  between  the  social  reformer  and  the  advo- 
cate of  religion,  was  accidental  and  not  necessary, — 
the  result  of  mutual  misunderstanding.  From  that 
time  up  to  the  present  moment,  we  have  labored  uni- 
formly to  reconcile  the  two. 

In  January,  1834,  the  writer  of  the  article  in  ques- 
tion, published  in  the  Unitarian,  a  periodical  edited  by 
the  late  lamented  Bernard  Whitman,  an  article  written 
nearly  a  year  previous,  on  "  Christianity  and  Re- 
form ;  "  in  which  he  "  labors  to  prove  that  no  salutary 
reform  can  be  effected  by  infidelity,  and  that  the 
spirit  of  reform  is  in  fact  the  very  spirit  of  the  Gos- 
pel." We  insert  an  extract  which  may  serve  to  set 
this  matter  in  its  true  light. 

"  That  infidelity  and  the  spirit  of  reform  have  sometimes 
been  found  in  alliance,  is  not  denied  ;  but  this  alliance  is  un- 
natural, and  has  never  produced  anything  worth  preserving. 
Reformers  have  sometimes  erred.  Animated  by  a  strong  de- 
sire for  human  improvement,  feeling  an  undying  love  for  man. 


opposition  to  Christianity.  13 

they  have  freely  devoted  themselves  to  his  emancipation,  and 
to  the  promotion  of  his  endless  progress  towards  perfection  ; 
but  they  have  not  always  had  clear  conceptions  of  what  would 
be  an  improvement,  of  the  good  attainable,  nor  of  the  practi- 
cable means  of  attaining  it.  Their  zeal  may  have  flowed  from 
pure  hearts,  but  it  has  not  always  been  guided  by  just  know- 
ledge. They  have  often  excited  needless  alarm,  waged  need- 
less war,  declaimed  when  they  should  have  reasoned,  censured 
when  they  should  have  pitied  and  consoled,  awakened  resent- 
ment when  they  should  have  gained  confidence,  and  attracted 
love.  The  consequence  is,  that  they  have  been  opposed  by 
their  natural  friends,  and  this  has  obliged  them  to  league  with 
their  natural  enemies. 

"  In  the  contest,  the  reformer  has  excited  the  alarms  of  the 
religious,  and  armed  against  himself  the  guardians  of  the 
faith.  He  has  met  the  minister  of  the  Church,  commanding 
him  in  the  name  of  God  to  desist,  and  assuring  him  that  if  he 
take  another  step  forward,  he  does  it  at  the  peril  of  his  soul's 
salvation.  When  the  French  Reformer  rose  against  the  mis- 
chievous remains  of  the  feudal  system,  and  the  severe  exac- 
tions of  a  superannuated  tyranny,  he  found  the  Church  leagued 
with  the  abuses  he  would  correct.  Those  who  lived  upon  her 
revenues  bade  him  retire.  The  anathema  met  his  advance, 
and  repelled  his  attack  ;  and  he  was  induced  to  believe  that 
there  was  no  place  whereon  to  erect  the  palace  of  liberty  and 
social  order,  but  the  ruins  of  the  Temple. 

"  Yet  his  cause  was  most  eminently  a  religious  cause.  It 
was  not  because  the  spirit  of  reform  was  an  infidel  spirit,  that  it 
was  opposed  by  the  professed  friends  of  religion.  All  reforms 
come  from  the  lower  classes,  who  are  always  the  sufferers  ; 
and  they  are  usually  opposed  by  the  higher  classes,  who  live 
by  those  very  abuses,  or  who  are  the  higher  classes  in  conse- 
quence of  those  very  abuses,  which  the  reformer  would  re- 
dress. These  classes,  whether  hereditary,  elective,  or  fortui- 
tous,—  whether  composed  of  the  same  individuals,  or  of  dif- 
ferent ones,  —  have  always  the  same  spirit,  and  the  same 
interests.  The  old  order  of  things  is  that  which  elevates  them  ; 
and  that  order  of  things,  they,  of  course,  must  feel  it  their 
duty  to  maintain.  Hence  it  is  that  the  upper  classes  of  society, 
all  who  are  under  the  direct  influence  of  those  classes,  and  all 
who  hope  one  day  to  make  a  part  of  them,  are  almost  always 
opposed  to  all  radical  changes,  and  consequently  to  all  real 
reform.  In  most  countries,  the  ministers  of  religion,  especially 
the  higher  orders  of  the  hierarchy,  make  up  a  part  of  the 
higher  and  privileged  classes  ;  and  hence  the  reason  why  they 
oppose  the  reformer,  and  force  him  into  the  ranks  of  the  un- 


14  Opposition  to  Christianity. 

believer.  They  from  their  position  feel  no  need  of  a  reform  in 
the  moral  and  social  institutions  of  the  community,  and  hope 
nothing  from  a  change ;  and  they  can  but  oppose  it.  They 
have  always  done  so,  and  always  will  do  so,  till  they  are  made 
sensible  that  they  must  lose  all  their  influence  and  their 
means  of  benefiting  themselves  or  others  by  continuing  their 
opposition."  * 

So  we  wrote  and  published  in  1834,  and  this  es- 
say contains  the  germ  of  all  we  have  since  pub- 
lished on  this  subject.  It  has  been  with  us  a  leading 
object  to  bring  out,  in  as  bold  relief  as  possible,  the 
great  fact,  that  Jesus  was  a  social  reformer,  that  the 
aim  of  his  mission  was  to  establish  the  reign  of  equal- 
\y  ity  on  earth,  as  well  as  to  secure  salvation  to  the  soul 

hereafter.  If  there  is  anything  peculiar  in  our  views, 
it  is  in  the  fact,  that  they  aim  to  reconcile  the  disciple 
of  Jesus  and  the  social  reformer,  to  bring  out  Chris- 
tianity as  a  means  of  social  reform,  and  to  enlist  the 
Church  on  the  side  of  the  down-trodden  masses. 
We  have  been  laboring  in  this  country  to  do  pre- 
cisely what  the  Abbe  de  la  Mennais  has  been  laboring 
to  do  in  France.  Almost  at  the  very  moment  he  was 
writing  his  Words  of  a  Believer^  we,  without  know- 
ing that  there  was  such  a  man  on  earth,  were  writing 
our  essay  on  Chistianity  and  Reform,  which  advocates 
in  sober  prose,  substantially  the  same  doctrines  that 
iie  has  sent  forth  in  his  inspired  poem, 
r  We  have,  it  is  true,  for  many  years  been  contending 
I  for  a  radical  reform,  not  in  politics  and  government 
only,  but  in  society  itself.  Our  democracy  is  of  the 
most  thorough-going  sort.  It  embraces  that  of  the 
democratic  party,  and  sustains  it;  but  it  goes  alto- 
gether beyond,  and  contemplates  results,  of  which  a 
large  portion  of  that  party  have  not  as  yet  even 
dreamed.  It  goes,  though  not  in  the  same  direction, 
as  far  as  Robert  Owen,  or  Frances  Wright  proposed 
to  go.  But  we  differ  from  these  notorious  individuals, 
not  only  in  our  conceptions  of  what  would  be  a  true 

*  Unitarian,    for   January,  1834.     Cambridge  and  Boston.  pp< 
36-38. 


Opposition  to  Christianity.  16 

reform,  but  in  the  very  important  fact,  that  while  they 
propose  to  remodel  society  without  the  aid  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  in  opposition  to  it,  we  propose  to  re- 
model society  by  its  aid,  and  in  obedience  to  its  law. 

We  demand  the  most  radical  reforms  ;  but  we  de- 
mand them  not  in  our  own  name,  nor  on  our  own  au- 
thority;  but  in  the  name  and  on  the  authority  of  God. 
Perhaps  this  is  what  has  most  offended  our  conserva- 
tive brethren.  It  is  taking  them,  we  own,  at  a  disad- 
vantage ;  and  condemning  them,  as  it  were,  out  of 
their  own  mouths.  But  is  this  our  fault  ?  They  pro- 
fess to  be  Christians;  they  acknowledge  the  authority 
of  the  Christian  law  ;  where  then  is  the  injustice  of 
trying  them  by  that  law  ?  Grant  that  by  proclaiming 
that  law,  and  bringing  them  to  its  test,  we  strip  off 
their  masks,  and  compel  them  to  stand  out  before  the 
gaze  of  men,  in  their  real  character  of  infidels  and 
sinners;  are  we  censurable  for  so  doing  *?  Are  we 
warring  against  Christianity,  when  we  deprive  the 
scribes  and  pharisees  of  our  times  of  the  comfortable 
assurance,  that  they  are  good  Christians,  and  heirs  of 
salvation,  while  they  merely  acknowledge  Christ  with 
their  lips,  but  in  their  hearts,  and  in  their  lives,  wor- 
ship the  flesh  and  the  devil  ?  If  our  course  disquiets 
them,  they  ought  to  blame,  it  would  seem,  themselves, 
not  us.  The  severity  of  our  preaching  may  be  in  their 
anti-christian  conduct,  not  in  the  words  we  use. 

We  wish  these  scribes  and  pharisees,  these  chief 
priests,  rulers  in  the  synagogues,  and  principal  men 
of  the  city,  to  understand  that  in  our  controversy 
with  them  we  take  Christian  ground.  In  our 
own  name  we  should  not  dare  speak  to  them  as  we 
do ;  but  we  speak  to  them  in  the  name  of  ouf] 
Master,  and  rebuke  them  from  the  height  of  the  Chris-  I 
tian  pulpit.  This  is  the  ground  we  have  assumed. 
We  know  well  its  advantages,  and  our  conservative 
friends  may  rest  assured,  that  we  shall  never  volunta- 
rily abandon  it  for  the  low  and  untenable  ground  of 
infidelity.  They  may  dislodge  us  if  they  can  ;  but 
they  may  rely  upon  it,  that  it  will  always  be  in  the 
name  and  on  the  authority  of  Christ,  that  we  shall  at- 


16  Opposition  to  Christianity. 

tack  them.  They  must  vindicate  their  own  claims  to 
be  regarded  as  Christians,  before  it  will  answer  for 
them  to  call  us  infidels  ;  especially  before  they  will 
have  the  right  to  infer  from  the  fact,  that  we  oppose 
what  they  uphold,  we  are  opposing  Christianity. 
They  may  say  that  they  are  Christians  j  they  may  say 
that  we  misinterpret  the  Christian  law  ;  but  we  bid 
them  lay  their  hands  on  their  hearts,  look  us  in  the 
face,  and  say  so  if  they  can.  We  speak  confidently 
here,  for  we  have  for  us  a  witness,  —  an  unimpeacha- 
ble witness,  —  in  their  own  breasts.  Their  own  con- 
sciences accuse  them  of  want  of  fidelity  to  the  Gos- 
pel, and  assure  them  that  between  their  Christianity 
and  that  of  Christ  there  is  a  great  gulf,  as  wide  and 
deep  as  that  which  separated  the  rich  man  in  hell, 
from  the  poor  beggar  lodged  by  angels  in  Abraham's 
bosom.  In  the  name  of  Christ,  we  have  summoned 
the  community  to  answer  for  its  Christianity,  to  show 
that  it  is  really  Christian,  or  else  to  abandon  its  pre- 
tensions to  the  Christian  name.  Is  this  infidelity? 
Then  are  we  infidels.  Is  this  to  prove  ourselves  hos- 
tile to  the  Christianity  of  Christ  ?  Then  are  we  hos- 
tile to  it. 

2.  But  it  is  said  that  we  oppose  the  Church,  and  it 
is  very  sagely  inferred,  that  a  man  cannot  oppose  the 
Church,  and  be  a  friend  to  Christ.  We  admit  that  we 
oppose  the  Church,  as  it  now  is ;  we  admit  that  we 
would  abolish  it;  nay,  that  we  are  determined  to  do 
all  in  our  power  to  abolish  it ;  but  we  deny  that  we 
are  therefore  hostile  to  religion,  or  doing  any  disser- 
vice to  the  cause  of  Christian  truth.  We  distinguish, 
as  we  have  said,  between  the  Christianity  of  the 
Church,  and  the  Christianity  of  Christ.  The  former 
we  have  no  respect  for;  the  latter  we  love,  and  rev- 
erence, and  seek  to  obey.  The  Christianity  of  the 
Church  is  merely  a  human  institution,  resting  solely 
on  human  authority,  and  may  be  treated  and  judged 
of  in  like  manner,  as  any  other  human  institution;  as 
may  be  the  science  of  chemistry,  for  instance,  of  geol- 
ogy, or  of  astronomy.  We  owe  it  no  allegiance,  and 
admit  not   its  right  to  command.      But  the  Christi- 


Opposition  to  Christianity.  17 

anity  of  Christ  is  the  Word  of  God,  and  therefore 
rests  on  Divine  r.ulhority.  To  it  -we  bow  as  our 
legitimate  sovereign,  and  feel  that  we  are  bound  in 
conscience  to  do  whatever  it  commands. 

Furthermore;  on  what  ground  have  we  opposed  the 
Church  ?     On  the  ground  that  it  is  a  Christian  institu 
tion,  upholding  and  giving  currency  to  Christian  prin 
ciples    and    influences  ?     Never.     But    solely   on    the 
ground  that  it  is   an  ant i'Christ\nn  institution,  which 
is  at  the  present   time   a  let  and   a  hindrance  to  the 
spread    of  Christian    truth,    to  the  growth   of   God's 
kingdom  in  the  soul,  and  on  the  earth.    We  oppose  it^ 
because  we  find  no  Divine  authority  for  it ;  because 
we  cannot  discover  that  Jesus  ever  contemplated  such 
an  institution ;  and  because  we  regard  it  as  the  grave 
of  freedom  and  independence,  and  the  hotbed  of  ser- 
vility and  hypocrisy.    We  oppose  it  because  it  does  not 
recognise  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  acknowledge  the  rights 
of  the  reason,  and  make   it  the   religious  duty  pf  its 
members  to   raise   up   the  bowed  down,   and   set  the 
captive  free.     Here  are  the  grounds  of  our  opposition 
to  the  Church;   and  surely  we  may  oppose  it  on  these 
grounds,  without  forfeiting  our  claims    to  faith  in  the 
Gospel,  or  fidelity  to   Christ.     Were  the   Church  the 
true  body  of  Christ,  did  it  truly  represent  him,  labor 
unweariedly  to  establish  God's  kingdom,  which  is  the 
reign  ol   truth,  justice,    and  love,   on   the    earth,    we 
should  be  the  last  to   raise  our   voices  against  it,  and 
foremost  to  give  it  all  the  support  in  our  power.     But 
the   Church   has  become  cold  and   lifeless  ;  the  Holy 
Ghost  does  not  dwell  in  her  midst;  she  has  a  form  of 
godliness,  but   not  its   power  ;   and  by  her   deeds  can 
no  flesh  be  justified.     We   have  studied   too  long  in 
the  school  of  Jesus,  to  be  able  to  believe  that  a  little 
psalm-singing,  a  little  sermonizing,  a  little  holy  water, 
or  consecrated  bread  or  wine,'  can   atone  for  sin,  and 
enable  the  soul  to  stand  up  holy  and  acceptable  in  the 
sight  of  its  Maker.     What  the  Church  enjoins  is  poor 
stuff,  at  best  dead  works,  which  cannot  purge  the  con- 
science, or  make  the  comers  thereunto   perfect.     Give 
us  being   not  seeming ;  give   us   a  life  of  true  active 


18  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood, 

holiness,  a  life  that  is  spent  in  serving  God  by  serv- 
ing his  children,  a  life  that  is  not  merely  to  be  here- 
after, but  a  life  that  now  is, —  a  true  eternal  life, 
which  realizes  the  kingdom  of  God  wherever  it  is 
lived ;  not  your  vain  shows,  your  hand-writing  of 
ordinances  and  will-worship,  which  Jesus  long  ago 
nailed  to  his  cross,  and  declared  utterly  worthless  by 
the  sacrifice  of  himself.  When  the  Church  lives  this 
life,  or  shows  that  she  has  power  to  impart  it,  we  will 
be  her  friend ;  till  then  we  must  oppose  her,  or  cease 
to  obey  the  Gospel. 

III.  A  third  objection,  which  we  have  heard  urged 
against  our  views,  is  that  we  would  abolish  the  priest- 
hood, and  dispense  with  all  religious  instruction,  and 
all  religious  worship.  To  this  objection  we  reply,  that 
the  inference  drawn  from  what  we  have  said  against 
priests,  is  unwarranted.  We  stated  expressly  in  the 
article  so  much  abused,  that  we  did  not  object  to  re- 
ligious teachers,  to  religious  instruction,  nor  to  reli- 
gious worship.  We  have  ourselves  officiated  as  a 
religious  teacher,  the  greater  part  of  the  time  for  the 
last  sixteen  years,  and  regard  ourselves  now  in  the 
light  of  a  religious  teacher,  as  much  as  ever  we  did. 
We  are  as  ready  to  preach  now  as  ever  we  were,  and 
trust  to  live  and  die  a  preacher  of  religion.  The 
views,  which  we  have  lately  put  forth  on  the  priest- 
hood, and  on  religious  worship,  are  precisely  such  as 
we  have  ever  entertained,  since  we  have  had  any  views 
on  the  subject.  We  have  preached  them  often,  and 
frequently  published  them  before. 

But  what  are  our  views  of  the  priesthood  ?  To 
what  did  we  in  reality  object,  when  we  objected  to  the 
priesthood  ?  These  questions  we  can  answer  only  by 
giving  at  some  length  our  views  of  Christianity,  as  an 
outward,  visible  institution. 

The  mission  of  Jesus  was  twofold.  One  purpose 
of  his  mission  was  to  atone  for  sin,  and  prepare  the. 
soul  for  heaven  in  the  world  to  come.  The  other  pur- 
pose was  to  found  a  holy  kingdom  on  the  earth,  under 
the  dominion  of  which  all  men  should  finally  be  brought. 


Opposition  to  the  Priesthood.  19 

This  last  purpose  is  the  only  one  which  concerns  us 
in  our  present  inquiry. 

This  holy  kingdom,  which  Christ  came  to  found  on 
the  earth,  has  been  mistaken  for  the  outward,  visible 
Church  ;  and  the  Church  has  therefore  been  held  to 
be  a  spiritual  body,  a  body  corporate,  independent  in 
itself,  and  distinct  from  the  body  politic,  civil  society, 
or  the  State.     This  has  given  rise  to  a  double  organi-  J^ 

zation  of  mankind  ;  one  for  material  interests  called 
the  State,  and  under  the  control  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment proper;  the  other  for  spiritual  purposes,  called 
the  Church,  and  governed  by  laws  and  officers  of  its 
own,  distinct  from  those  of  the  State. 

Now  to  this  we   strenuously  object.     We  would  es-1 
tablish  the  kingdom    of  God    on    the    earth;   but  we 
would   not  have    a    double    organization   of  mankind. 
We  would  have   but   a   single   organization;  and  this  V^ 

organization  we  would  call  not  the  Church,  but  the 
State.  This  organization  should  be  based  on  the 
principles  of  the  Gospel,  and  realize  them  as  per- 
fectly, as  finite  man  can  realize  them.  ' 

The  kingdom  of  God   is   an  inward,  spiritual  king-  y 

dom.  In  plain  language,  it  is  the  dominion  of  truth, 
justice,  and  love.  Now,  we  w^ould  build  up  this  king- 
dom not  by  founding  an  outward  visible  Church,  but 
by  cultivating  the  principles  of  truth,  justice,  and  love, 
in  the  soul  of  the  individual,  and  by  bringing  society  ) 
and  all  its  acts  into  perfect  harmony  with  them.  Our 
views,  if  carried  out,  would   realize   not   a   union,  but  V^ 

the  unity,  the  identity,  of  Church  and  State.  They 
would  indeed  destroy  the  Church  as  a  separate  body, 
as  a  distinct  organization  ;  but  they  would  do  it  by 
transferring  to  the  State  the  moral  ideas  on  which  the 
Church  was  professedly  founded,  and  which  it  has-- 
failed  to  realize.  They  would  realize  that  idea  of  a 
"  Christian  Commonwealth,"  after  which  our  Puritan 
fathers  so  earnestly  and  perseveringly  struggled.  J\ 
They  are  nothing  but  the  views  of  the  first  settlers  of 
this  state,  developed  and  systematized,  and  freed  from 
the  theological  phraseology  in  which  they  were  then 
3 


20  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

expressed.  We  are  true  to  their  idea,  to  their  spirit, 
and  are  laboring  to  realize  that  which  they  most  de* 
sired.  We  therefore  remind  those  who  profess  to 
reverence  our  Puritan  ancestors,  that  they  would  do 
well  to  study  the  history  and  opinions  of  those  ances- 
tors, and  forbear  to  censure  us,  till  they  are  prepared 
to  condemn  them.* 

So  much  in  reference  to  the  Church  as  an  organized 
body,  as  a  spiritual  society  distinct  from  the  civil 
society,  the  only  sense  in  which  we  have  ever  opposed 
it,  or  thought  of  opposing  it. 

As  it  concerns  religious  worship,  no  man  ever  con- 
tended more  strenuously  for  it  than  we  do ;  but  we 
do  not,  when  we  speak  strictly,  suffer  ourselves  to  call 
the  usual  exercises  of  the  Sabbath  the  worship  of 
God.  We  call  these  exercises,  in  fact  all  the  special 
works  the  Church  enjoins,  at  best  mere  preparations 
for,  or  aids  to  the  worship  of  God.  "  Pure  worship," 
(for  so  the  original  should  be  rendered,)  says  St. 
James,  "  and  undefiled  before  God  the  Father,  is  to 
visit  the  fatherless  and  the  widows  in  their  afflictions, 
and  to  keep  oneself  unspotted  from  the  world."  By 
this  we  understand  the  practice  of  a  pure  and  elevated 
morality.  We  worship  God  when  we  feed  the  hungry, 
give  drink  to  the  thirsty,  clothe  the  naked,  show  hos- 
pitality to  the  stranger,  visit  the  sick,  and  minister  to 
the  wants  of  the  prisoner.  We  worship  God  when  we 
cultivate  our  moral  powers,  develop  our  better  na- 
ture, acquire  just  and  holy  principles,  and  prepare 
ourselves  for  a  generous  self-sacrifice  in  the  cause  of 
truth  and  Humanity;  when  we  forget  ourselves,  go 
out  into  the  highways  and  byways,  into  the  world  at 
large,  and  labor  to  recall  the  erring,  to  enlighten  the 
ignorant,  to  comfort  the  sorrowing,  to  heal  the  broken- 
hearted, to  raise  up  the  down-trodden,  and  to  set  at 
liberty  them  that  are  bound  ;  when,  in  a  word,  we  seek 
to  redress  all  individual  and  social  wrongs,  and  to 
establish,  in  our  own  hearts  and  in  society  at  large,  the 

•  See  Boston  Quarterly  Review,  No.  II.  April,  1838.  pp.  216-218. 


opposition  to  the  Priesthood.  21 

reign  of  truth,  justice,  and  love.  Here  is  what  we 
understand  by  the  worship  of  God.  So  far  as  your 
gathering  together  on  one  day  in  seven,  singing  psalms 
and  listening  to  religious  discourses,  being  baptized 
or  partaking  of  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  supper, 
contribute  to  this  end,  so  far  we  approve  w^hat  is 
usually  termed  the  worship  of  God  ;  but  no  farther. 
These  exercises  are  simply  means  to  an  end,  and  so 
far  as  our  experience  goes,  not  very  efficietit  means. 
It  is  the  cant  of  the  day  to  praise  them  ;  to  speak  of 
them  as  the  dear  and  venerable  institutions  of  religion, 
without  which  we  should  all  degenerate  into  barba- 
rism and  the  grossest  licentiousness  ;  but  we  have 
no  respect  for  this  cant ;  and  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hun- 
dred of  those,  whose  mouths  are  fullest  of  it,  have 
just  as  little.  We  can  tolerate  an  open,  avowed  infi- 
del ;  but  not  a  canting  hypocrite,  whose  mouth  is  full 
of  the  institutions  of  our  ancestors,  and  the  blessed 
doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  —  but  whose  heart  is  harder 
than  the  nether  millstone,  and  whose  life  is  one  mass 
of  corruption.  We  wish  to  hear  things  called  by  their 
right  names  -,  and  we  can  dignify  nothing  with  the 
name  of  worship  to  God,  which  is  not  either  in  itself 
intrinsically  good,  or  which  does  not  contribute  some- 
thing to  the  well-being  of  man, —  to  the  growth  of 
the  individual,  or  the  progress  of  society. 

So  much,  again,  for  the  w^orship  of  God,  which, 
with  us,  is  simply  being  good,  and  doing  good. 

We  turn  now  to  the  priesthood.  Here  we  beg  our 
readers  to  bear  in  mind  what  it  is  that  we  understand 
by  the  term  priest.  As  the  term  is  used  in  our  article, 
it  has  two  meanings.  First,  it  means  a  man  who  acts 
as  a  sort  of  mediator  between  man  and  God.  Second- 
ly, it  means  one  of  a  profession  whose  duty  it  is  to 
expound  to  us,  for  hire,  and  authoritatively ,  the  great 
doctrines  of  religion  and  morals.  In  the  first  sense, 
the  word  is  rarely  used  in  this  country.  There  are 
few  of  our  countrymen  who  regard  a  priest  as  capable 
of  mediating  between  them  and  God.  This,  however, 
is  the  old  sense  of  the  word,  and  especially  the  Jewish 


22  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

sense;  but  in  this  sense  a  priest  cannot  be  admitted 
under  the  Gospel.  We  all  unquestionably  require  a 
mediator  between  us  and  the  Father,  for  no  man  can 
approach  the  Father  without  a  mediator.  But  we  have, 
as  we  have  before  said,  one  Mediator,  the  Man  Christ 
Jesus,  who  gave  himself  a  ransom  for  all.  This  one 
Mediator  we  hold  is  enough.  Jesus  Christ '  is  our 
grand  High  Priest,  and  he  alone,  if  there  be  any  truth 
in  the  New  Testament,  is  sufficient.  He  has  offered 
up  the  great  propitiatory  sacrifice,  hath  entered  into 
the  Holy  of  Holies  for  us,  and  forever  sat  down  on  the 
right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  High,  where  he  ever  liveth 
to  make  intercession  for  us.  If  any  man  sin,  he  has 
not  now  to  go  to  a  priest  to  intercede  for  him,  to  pray 
for  him ;  for  Paul  says,  "  I  would  that  men  should 
pray  everywhere,  lifting  up  holy  hands  without  wrath 
or  doubting."  He  wants  no  priest  to  propitiate  the 
Deity  for  him;  for  as  John  says,  "We  have  an  ad- 
vocate with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ  the  righteous, 
who  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours 
only,  but  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world."  It  is  evi- 
dent, then,  that  Jesus,  as  Mediator,  supersedes  all 
necessity  of  priests  in  the  first  sense  in  which  we  have 
used  the  term.  In  seeking  to  abolish  the  priestly 
order,  then,  in  the  sense  of  a  mediator  between  God 
and  man,  we  are  merely  following  out  the  doctrine  of 
the  Gospel,  —  a  doctrine  our  readers  will  find  clearly 
set  forth  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

So  much  for  the  first  sense  in  which  we  use  the 
word  priest.  Thus  far,  we  presume  we  shall  en- 
counter no  very  violent  opposition.  In  touching  upon 
the  priests  in  the  second  sense,  in  which  we  have  used 
the  term,  we  touch  upon  altogether  more  dangerous 
ground,  and  run  some  risk  of  being  crucified  between 
two  thieves.  In  this  second  sense  we,  of  course,  in- 
clude the  great  body  of  the  clergy  of  all  denomina- 
tions, which  recognise  a  clergy,  and  therefore  raise  up 
against  us  a  numerous  and  a  powerful  host  of  foes. 
But  we  are  not  much  afraid  of  consequences.  We  are 
not  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  here  "  the  fist  of  wick- 


Opposition  to  the  Priesthood,  23 

edness  that  would,  is  bound  that  it  cannot  smite  ;  " 
and  were  it  not  so,  we  still  should  feel  quite  at  our 
ease  ;  for  we  have  long  since  learned  not  to  fear  them 
who  kill  the  body,  and  after  that  have  no  more  that 
they  can  do;  but  Him,  who,  after  he  hath  killed,  hath 
power  to  destroy  both  soul  and  body  in  hell. 

But  on  the  point,  upon  which  we  now  touch,  we  must 
ask  our  readers  to  do  their  best  not  to  misinterpret  us. 
For  the  views,  we  actually  set  forth,  we  hold  ourselves 
responsible,  and  are  willing  to  receive  whatever  meas- 
ure of  condemnation  the  community  in  its  justice,  or 
its  zeal,  may  choose  to  mete  out ;  but  we  are  not  will- 
ing to  be  held  responsible  for  what  we  do  not  believe, 
nor  to  be  condemned  for  doctrines  we  should  abhor  to 
teach.  We  wish  it  therefore  distinctly  understood, 
that  we  do  not,  in  opposing  the  clergy,  oppose  teachers 
of  religion,  nor  preachers  of  the  Gospel.  We  would 
have  more  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  not  less ;  more 
religious  congregations,  not  fewer.  We  oppose  not 
clergymen  in  their  capacity  of  men  and  Christians,  nor 
in  their  capacity  of  simple  teachers  or  ministers  of  the 
Gospel;  but  in  their  capacity  of  members  of  an  eccle-7 
siastical  corporation,  of  a  separate  profession,  author-j 
ized  by  law,  fashion,  or  custom,  to  tell  us  authorita- 
tively what  we  must  believe  and  do  in  order  to  be 
saved,  and  who  are  to  obtain  their  rank  in  society,^ 
and  their  means  of  living,  by  ministering  at  the  altar.i 
We  believe  the  time  has  come  when  the  clerical  pro- 
fession, as  a  separate  profession^  as  a  sort  of  trade,  isX 
no  longer  needed  ;  nay,  when  it  has  become  a  positive  y 
hindrance  to  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  the, 
growth  of  religion  in  the  soul.  We  war  then  not 
against  preaching  the  Gospel,  but  against  making  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  a  trade,  a  regular  business, 
from  which  a  numerous  class  of  men  are  to  derive 
their  revenues.  And  to  this  we  have  several  serious 
objections. 

1.  We  find  no  authority  in  the  New  Testament  for 
the  support  of  such  a  profession.  Jesus  sent  out 
Apostles,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  calls  men  to  prophesy 


24  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

and  to  teach  ;  but  not  as  we  can  discover  to  be  clergy- 
men or  priests.  Under  Judaism,  there  was  a  regularly 
constituted  priesthood,  hereditary  in  a  particular  tribe 
and  family,  but  nothing  of  this  is  recognised  under 
the  Gospel.  The  old  covenant,  which  recognised 
priests  as  mediators  between  God  and  men,  was  con- 
demned, as  insufficient ;  and  God  told  us  by  the  mouth 
of  his  prophet,  that  "  the  days  should  come  when  he 
would  make  a  new  covenant  with  the  house  of  Israel, 
and  the  house  of  Judah.  I  will  put,"  says  he,  "  my  law 
in  their  inward  parts,  and  write  it  upon  their  hearts, 
and  I  will  be  their  God,  and  they  shall  be  my  people, 
and  they  shall  not  teach  every  man  his  brother,  and 
every  man  his  neighbor,  saying,  Know  the  Lord  ;  for 
all  shall  know  me  from  the  least  of  them  to  the  great- 
est." Now,  here  is  the  new  covenant  under  which 
we  are.  This  new  covenant  recognises  but  one  Medi- 
ator, Jesus  Christ,  who  gave  himself  a  ransom  for  us. 
It  recognises  no  priestly  order,  except  the  order  of 
Melchisedec ;  that  is,  an  order  of  priests,  who  are 
priests  not  by  human  appointment,  or  human  ordinan- 
ces, not  by  consecration  with  holy  oil,  or  the  laying 
on  of  the  hands  of  the  presbytery  j  but  by  the  inward 
anointing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  by  having  God's  law 
within,  and  written  on  the  heart.  After  the  order  of 
Melchisedec,  the  new  covenant  proposes  to  make  all 
men  priests.  Under  the  Gospel,  all  men  are  evidently 
called  to  be  "  kings  and  priests."  This  fact  is  impor- 
tant. Under  the  Jewish  dispensation,  only  the  de- 
scendants of  David  could  be  kings,  and  only  the  tribe 
of  Levi  could  furnish  priests.  In  calling  all  men  to 
be  kings  and  priests,  the  Gospel  took  ground  directly 
opposite  to  the  Jewish,  and  proclaimed,  on  the  one 
band,  the  royal  and  priestly  nature  of  every  man,  and 
on  the  other,  the  abolition  of  all  distinctions  founded 
on  birth  or  blood  ;  in  other  w^ords,  it  proclaimed  the 
natural  and  essential  equality  of  all  men.  Moreover, 
in  seeking  to  make  every  man  a  king  and  a  priest,  the 
Gospel,  of  course,  seeks  to  dispense  with  everything 
like  a  separate  order  of  kings  or  of  priests.     If  all 


Opposition  to  the  Priesthood.  26 

men  should  become  kings,  the  effect  would  be  the  same 
-with  having  no  king  at  all  ;  for  all  would  be  equal. 
If  all  men  should  become  priests,  it  would  be  the 
abolition  of  the  priestly  order,  as  a  separate  order. 
In  relation  to  that  order,  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
have  condemned  it,  we  should  stand  precisely  as  if 
we  had  no  priests.  Now,  as  the  Gospel  makes  no  pro- 
vision for  a  clerical  order,  as  it  contemplates  making 
every  man  his  own  priest,  we  have  a  right  to  infer, 
that  it  does  not  authorize  a  priesthood  in  the  practical 
sense  in  which  mankind  understand  the  term. 

If  there  be  any  truth  in  the  statement,  that  we  are 
under  the  new  covenant,  a  covenant  which  recognises 
Tio  outward  mediator,  no  outward  priesthood,  but  sim- 
ply the  priesthood  of  the  soul,  expressed  by  putting 
the  law  in  the  inward  parts,  and  writing  it  on  the 
heart,  whereby  every  man  may  be  his  own  priest,  it 
follows,  that  we  may  oppose  the  clergy,  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  do  oppose  them,  without  opposing  the 
Gospel ;  nay,  that  if  we  would  obey  the  Gospel,  we 
must  oppose  them. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  account  for  the  existence  of  the 
clerical  body.  It  grew  up  in  a  great  measure  out  of 
the  wants  of  past  times ;  because,  in  the  general  igno- 
rance and  barbarism  of  the  ages  which  succeeded  the 
first  promulgation  of  the  Gospel,  there  was  a  real  and 
useful  work  for  the  Christian  priest  to  perform.  It 
also  in  part,  and  especially  in  its  priestly  character, 
owes  its  origin  to  the  old  Jewish  and  pagan  notions 
of  a  priesthood,  which  the  primitive  believers  retained 
even  after  their  conversion  to  Christ.  It  has  doubtless 
done  much  good  in  its  day,  when  it  was  needed  ;  but 
then  its  day  was  only  till  the  community  became  pre- 
pared for  a  truly  Christian  organization. 

2.  We  object  to  the  clerical  profession,  because  it 
is  impossible  for  any  man  faithfully  and  honestly  to 
fulfil  its  requirements.  Formerly,  before  the  coming 
of  Christ,  the  office  of  a  priest  was  comparatively 
easy.  The  work  the  priest  was  called  upon  to  per- 
form was   marked  out,  and  so  completely  within  the 


26  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood, 

reach  of  ordinary  skill  and  industry,  that  any  man 
could  do  it,  with  a  little  preliminary  instruction.  Re- 
ligious duties  were  outward,  formal  duties,  consisting 
entirely  in  something  to  be  done,  and  which  could  be 
done  mechanically,  without  thought  or  emotion.  There 
was  no  need  that  the  priest  should  have  his  mind,  or 
his  heart  in  what  he  was  performing.  He  was  not,  as 
a  general  rule,  a  teacher  of  religion,  of  moral  truth, 
but  a  sacrifirator.  Under  Judaism,  he  was  mainly  a 
butcher,  whose  chief  duty  it  was  to  slaughter  the  ani- 
mals offered  in  sacrifice.  He  was,  under  a  religion 
consisting,  as  all  religions  prior  to  Jesus  did  consist, 
mainly  in  rites  and  ceremonies,  a  very  necessary  and 
indispensable-functionary.  But  just  in  proportion  as 
religion  becomes  spiritualized,  is  made  to  consist  in  in- 
ward communion  with  God,  he  becomes  less  and  less 
indispensable.  In  the  Catholic  Church,  the  priest  has 
still  somewhat  to  do,  which  a  man  may  always  be  pre- 
pared to  do.  That  Church  has  an  imposing  cidtus^  a 
service,  deemed  essential  to  the  salvation  of  souls, 
which  cannot  be  performed  without  priests.  Priests 
there  are  necessary  to  administer  the  sacraments,  of 
which  there  are  seven.  In  that  Church,  we  cannot 
marry  without  a  priest,  be  born  without  a  priest,  be 
buried  without  a  priest,  nor  be  saved  or  damned  with- 
out a  priest.  Some  little  show  of  propriety  is  there 
then,  in  the  Catholic  Church,  in  having  priests,  because 
there  is  a  considerable  work  necessary  to  be  done  for 
the  worship  of  God,  which  the  individual  cannot  do 
for  himself.  Also,  in  the  Church  of  England,  the 
clerical  order  can  get  along  very  well.  It  has  a  ritual, 
a  service,  which  requires  the  assistance  of  a  clergy- 
man, and  which  the  clergyman  may  render  mechani- 
cally. If  one  only  have  pleasant  manners,  a  respecta- 
ble personal  appearance,  a  good  voice,  and  a  tolerable 
capacity  as  a  reader,  he  can  be  a  very  commendable 
priest  in  the  Church  of  England,  whatever  be  the 
qualities  of  his  mind  or  his  heart.  But  in  proportion 
as  we  advance  on  these  two  Churches,  and  leave  them 
and   their   Jewish    and  pagan  traditions  behind,  the 


opposition  to  the  Priesthood.  27 

duties  of  the  clergy  become  more  arduous,  and  more 
difficult  of  performance ;  because  they  cannot  be  per- 
formed mechanically,  or  as  a  matter  of  routine. 

We  go  into  a  Calvinistic  Church,  whether  Baptist  or 
Presbyterian,  and  we  find  very  little  for  the  clergyman 
to  perform,  which  he  can  perform  properly  without  the 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  may,  be  his  heart 
or  his  mind  where  it  may,  baptize,  by  aspersion  or 
immersion,  and  administer  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  supper;  but  this  is  all.  The  Calvinistic 
churches  have  very  properly  abolished  almost  every- 
thing like  a  cultus  exterior.  They  adopt  no  ritual,  no 
liturgy,  and  have  reduced  the  sacraments  to  two. 
They  have  spiritualized  so  much,  that  they  have 
spirited  away  nearly  all  the  old  work  there  was  for  the 
clergyman  to  do.  In  revenge,  they  have  imposed  upon 
him  new  duties  ;  and  duties  which  infinitely  surpass 
mortal  strength.  The  main  duties  of  the  clergyman 
with  us  are  to  make  pastoral  visits,  pray  and  preach 
on  Sundays,  and  administer  the  two  sacraments  we 
have  specified.  The  pastoral  visits,  the  praying  and 
the  preaching,  require,  at  the  moment  of  their  perfor- 
mance, the  full  action  of  the  mind,  and  a  lively  glow 
of  devotional  feeling.  Nothing  is  more  painful  to  the 
really  conscientious  minister,  than  to  be  called  upon 
to  pray,  either  in  a  private  family  or  in  public,  when 
he  has  no  spirit  of  prayer,  when  his  devotional  feel- 
ings are  cold  or  languid.  But  he  must  go  through 
with  the  forms  of  prayer,  whatever  be  the  frame  of  his 
heart.  He  must  take  the  sacred  words  on  his  lips, 
and  utter  them  with  fervor,  although  no  fervor  he  feels; 
This  sullies  the  chastity  of  his  soul,  and  he  soon  comes 
to  perform  his  devotional  exercises  without  having 
his  heart  in  them.  He  affects  in  their  performance 
a  warmth  he  does  not  feel,  and  becomes  in  the  end  a 
mere  actor,  now  appearing  to  weep  with  the  mourners 
at  a~ftmeral,  and  now  half  an  hour  afterwards  to  make 
merry  with  a  bridal  party  at  a  wedding;  while  he  has 
the  most  perfect  indifference  to  both.  He  in  reality 
makes  a  mock  of  devotion.  He  feels  that  it  is  so, 
4 


28  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

and  loathes  himself.  He  would  do  better,  would  be 
sincere,  always  in  earnest;  but  it  is  not  in  his  power. 
He  goes  into  his  pulpit  to-day  with  a  barren  mind, 
with  listless  thoughts,  cold  and  languid  feelings.  He 
has  no  life  in  him.  But  there  is  a  congregation  de- 
manding that  he  shall  lead  its  devotions,  waiting  for 
him  to  quicken  its  devout  feelings,  and  lead  it  into 
the  presence  of  God.  Alas,  he  himself  is  by  no  means 
in  God's  presence,  and  cannot  rise  to  it.  How  then 
shall  he  lead  others  there  ?  It  is  a  moral  injury  to 
compel  him  in  this  state  of  feeling  to  go  through  with 
the  forms  of  devotion.  You  force  him  to  play  the 
actor,  the  hypocrite. 

Then,  again,  you  require  this  man  to  preach  to  you, 
to  lay  open  the  mysteries  of  religion  to  your  under- 
standings, to  quicken  within  you  a  sense  of  duty,  to 
raise  your  thoughts  and  affections  to  the  spiritual  and 
the  everlasting.  There  are  moments  when  he  can  do 
this,  when  his  mental  vision  shall  be  clear,  his  heart 
glowing  with  Divine  love,  his  mind  full  of  great  and 
kindling  thoughts,  and  his  utterance  be  with  power. 
Then  it  is  profitable  to  him,  and  to  you,  that  he  should 
preach.  Then  the  spirit  rests  upon  him,  and  he  can 
speak  to  you  as  it  were  with  a  tongue  of  fire.  But 
how  few  are  these  moments  in  the  lives  of  the  best  of 
men  !  They  come  not  at  our  bidding.  We  must  wait 
for  them,  as  waited  the  poor  wretches  for  the  angel  to 
descend  and  trouble  the  waters  of  Bethesda.  The 
young  man  has  felt  something  of  this  moving  of  God's 
spirit,  and  entered  the  ministry,  trusting  that  he  should 
feel  it  always.  But  soon  he  learns  that  one  does  not 
feel  it  always;  and  what  is  worse,  the  nature  of  his 
profession  is  such,  that  he  must  act  ever  as  if  he  did 
feel  it.  He  is,  therefore,  as  a  preacher,  early  compelled 
to  assume  a  state  of  feeling  which  he  has  not,  to  be- 
come an  actor,  and  to  seem  to  the  public  what  he  is 
not  to  himself.  Who  can  tell  the  mischief  thus  occa- 
sioned to  the  moral  health  of  both  clergyman  and 
people  7  This  result  is  unavoidable.  No  piety,  no 
genius,    no   talent,  no  learning,  no  effort   can  guard 


opposition  to  the  Priesthood.  29 

against  it.  We  say,  then,  we  do  a  moral  wrong  to 
tempt  by  our  institutions  young  men  into  a  profession, 
which  exposes  them  necessarily  to  the  evil  here  de- 
picted,—  an  evil  which  nearly  the  whole  body  of  our 
clergy  see  and  deplore. 

Indeed,  who  that  knows  anything  of  the  human 
mind  and  its  capacities,  can  avoid  smiling  at  the  sim- 
plicity, which  exacts  of  a  man  fifty  or  a  hundred,  and 
in  some  cases  a  hundred  and  fifty  sermons  in  a  year, 
for  thirty,  forty,  or  fifty  years  in  succession  ?  And  in 
these  times,  too,  when  the  general  intelligence  of  the 
people  is  increasing  so  rapidly,  that  it  requires  no 
small  effort  on  the  part  of  the  clergyman  to  keep  pace 
with  it  ?  We  ask  altogether  too  much.  Our  clergymen 
labor  hard  to  meet  the  demands  made  upon  them,  and 
we  see  their  success  in  their  broken  constitutions,  and 
early  graves.  It  were  infinitely  better  for  them  and 
for  us,  would  we  so  arrange  matters  that  no  man 
should  be  required  to  lead  our  devotions,  except  when 
he  had  the  spirit  of  prayer  on  him,  and  that  no  man 
should  be  called  to  address  a  public  assembly,  except 
when  he  had  a  word  pressing  upon  his  heart  for  utter- 
ance. 

3.  We  also  object  to  the  present  constitution  of  the 
clergy,  because,  we  hold  that  no  man  has  a  right  to 
preach  unless  called  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  only  when 
he  is  moved  by  the  spirit  of  God.  God's  spirit  is  in 
the  world ;  it  moves  in  the  hearts  of  men  ;  it  calls 
one  here  and  another  there,  one  to  this  work  and 
another  to  that ;  it  anoints  one  with  an  unction  from 
above,  and  fits  him  for  the  acceptable  performance  of 
the  work  to  which  he  is  called.  They  who  are  desig- 
nated as  preachers  by  God's  spirit,  who  are  fitted  for 
their  work  by  the  anointing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
w^ho,  therefore,  can  speak  with  authority,  and  a  w^ord 
which  shall  be  with  power,  we  hold  have  a  right  to 
preach ;  but  none  others.  This,  we  believe  is  the  doc- 
trine of  the  New  Testament. 

Now,  are  we  to  presume  that  the  great  body  of  the 
clergy  of  Christendom  have  been   thus   called  by  the 


30  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

Holy  Ghost  ?  If  so,  we  must  believe  in  very  deed, 
that  "  God  hath  chosen  the  foolish  things  of  this  world 
to  confound  the  wisdom  of  the  wise,  and  weak  things 
to  confound  them  that  are  mighty."  But  it  is  no  lack 
of  charity  to  say,  that  in  a  vast  majority  of  cases,  the 
Holy  Ghost  has  no  agency  in  the  matter;  or  if,  at  one 
period  in  the  life  of  the  individual  clergyman,  he  had 
shed  down  some  hallowing  influence,  he  has  long  since 
been  grieved,  and  withheld  it.  The  truth  is,  and 
there  is  no  use  in  denying  it,  that  the  greater  portion 
of  those,  who  enter  the  ministry,  enter  it  not  because 
they  believe  that  they  have  any  special  vocation 
thereto,  but  because  it  promises  them  a  respectable 
means  of  living;  or  because  their  parents  or  friends 
have  insisted  upon  their  entering  it.  As  a  general 
rule  with  us,  a  man  enters  the  ministry  because  he  has 
some  taste  for  literary  pursuits  and  serious  studies  ; 
because  he  would  have  some  more  influential  and  repu- 
table calling  than  that  of  mere  manual  labor.  The 
boy  is  sent  to  school,  from  the  school  to  the  academy, 
from  the  academy  to  the  college  ;  during  the  last  year 
of  his  college  life,  he  usually  decides  what  profession 
he  will  take.  On  leaving  college,  if  his  decision  has 
been  in  favor  of  the  law,  he  enters  a  lawyer's  office; 
if  in  favor  of  medicine,  he  goes  to  study  with  some 
practitioner;  if  in  favor  of  divinity,  he  enters  the 
Theological  Seminary.  There  he  pores,  or  does  not 
pore,  over  a  mass  of  antiquated  volumes,  fills  his  head 
with  a  certain  quantity  of  dead  men's  brains,  and  is 
forthwith  licensed  to  the  cure  of  souls.  Now  what 
has  the  spirit  of  God  to  do  with  all  this  ?  Follow  this 
licentiate  into  the  pulpit,  follow  him  till  he  is  settled 
in  the  ministry,  listen  to  his  devotions,  listen  to  his 
sermons,  and  what  hear  you  ?  A  man  speaking  with 
a  living  voice,  out  of  his  own  full  heart,  and  from  his 
own  earnest  convictions,  great  and  kindling  truths, 
burning  from  the  primal  Source  of  Truth  itself?  No; 
you  hear  a  dull,  wheezy  drone,  from  which  you  are 
fain  to  take  refuge  in  your  own  thoughts,  or  in  sleep; 
or  you  hear  a  parrot  repeating  what   some  dull  pro- 


Opposition  to  the  Priesthood,  31 

fessor  has  beaten  into  him.  Blaspheme  not,  we  pray 
you,  the  Holy  Ghost,  by  saying  that  this  talking  au- 
tomaton is  of  his  calling. 

4.  We  object  to  the  clergy,  because  they  receive  at 
present  no  encouragement  to  preach  the  word  of  God 
faithfully,  and  are  so  situated  that  it  is  their  interest 
to  conceal  that  word,  whenever  it  is  not  in  accord- 
ance with  the  convictions  and  the  usages  of  the  com- 
munity, or  of  their  particular  congregations. 

We  are  not  among  those  who  rail  at  the  clergy.  We 
have  had  some  acquaintance  with  them,  and  some  of 
our  best  and  most  valued  friends  are  clergymen.  We 
are  far  from  believing  that  in  moral  or  intellectual 
worth  the  clergy  fall  much  below  any  other  class  of 
the  community.  We  believe  no  class  has  ever  fur- 
nished brighter  or  more  numerous  examples  of  a  dis- 
interested devotion  to  truth  and  duty.  Individuals 
from  their  body  have  always  been  foremost  in  all  great 
reforms,  whether  moral,  social,  or  political.  They, 
who  stand  at  the  head  of  the  movement  party  in  this 
country,  have  been  bred  to  the  church,  and  have  offi- 
ciated as  clergymen.  These  are  facts  which  it  gives 
us  pleasure  to  state.  Still,  the  clergy,  as  a  body,  can 
in  general  be  free,  and  bold,  only  by  compromitting 
their  support;  and  it  needs  no  extensive  knowledge 
of  human  nature  to  know  that,  where  this  is  the  case, 
the  prevailing  spirit  of  the  body  will  be  that  of  com- 
pliance, not  that  of  independence. 

There  are  and  can  be  but  three  methods  of  support- 
ing a  clergy,  as  a  professional  body.  The  first,  that 
of  a  church  establishment,  by  independent  ecclesias- 
tical revenues  ;  the  second,  that  of  a  salary,  paid  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  by  the  civil  government;  and  the 
third,  what  is  called  the  voluntary  system.  The  first 
system  is  the  Catholic  system,  and  is  that  which  pre- 
vailed from  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Empire  up  to 
the  rise  of  Protestantism  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
which  still  obtains,  we  believe,  in  most  Catholic  coun- 
tries. This  system  has  the  advantage  over  the  two 
others  of  rendering   the  clergy  independent  of  both 


32  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

the  government  and  the  people.  The  priest  can  re- 
prove, without  fear  of  losing  his  salary,  both  his  con- 
gregation and  the  state.  So  far  his  situation  is  de- 
sirable. Neither  can  call  him  to  an  account  for  his 
doctrines,  or  punish  him  for  heresy.  This  gives  him, 
so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  all  the  independence 
needed,  and  a  moral  power  which  has  often  proved 
salutary.  If  we  must  always  have  a  regular  clergy,  a 
class  of  men  whose  profession  it  is  to  minister  at  the 
altar,  and  who  are  to  obtain  their  means  of  living  by 
their  profession,  we  should  prefer  this  system  to  all 
others.  We  would  raise  the  clergy  above  the  people, 
and  above  the  state,  and  give  them  an  income  for 
"which  they  should  be  dependent  on  neither.  But  we 
are  by  no  means  satisfied  with  this  system.  If  it  ren- 
der the  clergy  independent  of  the  state  and  the  con- 
gregation, it  in  return  enslaves  the  congregation  and 
the  state  to  the  priesthood ;  and,  what  is  almost  as 
bad,  the  individual  priest  to  the  whole  body  of  priests. 
The  individual  priest  must  obey  the  commands  of  his 
order,  comply  with  the  creed  and  usages  of  the 
church,  or  be  ejected  from  his  living,  and  punished 
for  innovation  and  heresy.  The  priesthood  may  thus 
be  independent,  but  the  individual  priest  is  a  slave. 
He  is  as  much  enslaved  as  he  can  be  under  either  of 
the  other  two  systems,  though  not  to  the  same  master. 
The  second  system  obtains  in  France,  in  Protestant 
Germany,  and  perhaps  in  England.  We  say  perhaps 
in  England.  In  England  nothing  is  systematic.  Every- 
thing is  jumbled  together,  till  we  have  a  heterogeneous 
mass,  of  which  it  is  rarely  safe  to  affirm  or  deny  any- 
thing without  numerous  qualifications  and  reserves. 
The  king  there  is  head  of  the  church,  and  the  creed 
and  constitution  of  the  church  are  subject  to  the  re- 
vision and  determination  of  parliament.  This  of 
course  subjects  the  church  to  the  state.  But  it  pro- 
fesses to  hold  its  revenues  by  certain  vested  rights, 
which  transcend  the  legitimate  reach  of  the  civil  gov- 
ernment. It  is  properly  therefore  a  combination  of  an 
independent  church,  like  the  Catholic,  sustaining  itself 


Opposition  to  the  Priesthood,  33 

by  its  own  revenues,  and  of  a  church  supported  by 
the  state  as  one  of  its  functionaries,  as  is  the  case 
in  Protestant  Germany.  But  be  this  as  it  may,  noth- 
ing outrages  our  ideas  of  propriety  more  than  the 
subjection  of  the  church  to  the  state;  in  which  case 
the  clergy  must  sustain  thecivil  order  which  may  at 
any  time  exist,  or  be  ejected  as  non-jurors.  If  the 
church  be  anything,  it  is  the  embodyment  of  moral 
ideas.  It  is  then  by  its  very  nature  superior  to  the 
state,  which  embodies  only  material  ideas.  It  should 
then,  as  the  Roman  Catholic  has  always  contended, 
give  the  law  to  the  state,  and  not  receive  it  from  the 
State.  The  priest  is,  if  he  is  anything,  the  superior 
of  the  magistrate.  To  subject  the  church  to  the  con- 
trol of  the  state,  strikes  us  then  as  analogous  to  sub- 
jecting the  soul  to  the  control  of  the  body,  mind  to 
the  control  of  matter. 

But  both  of  these  systems  presuppose  an  establish- 
ment, either  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  on  which  the  clergy 
as  individuals  depend  for  their  living.  The  interest 
then  of  the  clergy  will  always  be  to  sustain  that  es- 
tablishment. Consequently,  the  great  body  of  the 
clergy  must  always  be  conservatives,  and  opposed  to 
innovations,  changes,  progress.  Neither  system  can  be 
adopted  by  any  one  who  believes  that  the  world  may  be 
ameliorated,  or  a  better  order  introduced.  The  first 
system  can  obtain  only  with  those  who  believe  in  the 
infallibility  of  the  church ;  the  second  only  with  those 
who  believe  in  the  infallibility  of  the  state;  but  as  we 
believe  neither  in  the  infallibility  of  the  one  nor  of 
the  other,  we  reject  both  systems  of  supporting  the 
clergy.  Any  method  of  sustaining  the  clergy,  which 
gives  them  a  direct  interest  in  upholding  either  the 
church  or  the  state  as  it  is,  we  hold  to  be  adverse  to 
the  true  interests  of  mankind.  When  you  have  a 
church  that  embodies  the  full  idea  of  Jesus,  we  will 
consent  to  desist  from  attacking  it,  and  from  seeking 
in  relation  to  it,  any  further  progress.  But  so  long 
as  it  confessedly  falls  far  below  that  idea,  we  must 
needs  believe  that  its  ministers  should  be  so  situated, 


34  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

that  they  may  be  free  to  labor  to  perfect  it.  When 
you  will  introduce  a  perfect  civil  order,  we  will  con- 
sent that  you  shall  organize  the  clergy  in  such  a  way, 
that  they  shall  have  a  direct  interest  in  sustaining  it; 
but  so  long  as  the  civil  organization  of  mankind  re- 
mains in  its  present  imperfection,  it  is  madness  to 
bring  all  the  moral  force  of  the  great  body  of  the  cler- 
gy to  bear,  as  it  must  if  they  are  sustained  by  the 
state,  against  all  who  would  labor  to  perfect  it. 

It  remains  now  to  consider  what  is  called  the  vol- 
untary system.  This  system  we  deem  decidedly,  as  a 
permanent  system,  the  worst  of  the  three.  The  first 
system  implies  the  infallibility  of  the  church,  and  en- 
slaves the  state  and  the  people  to  the  ecclesiastical 
order,  besides  enslaving  each  individual  clergyman  to 
the  whole  body  of  clergymen  taken  collectively;  the 
second  enslaves  the  individual  clergyman  and  the 
people  in  like  manner  as  the  first,  but  subjects  the 
church  to  the  state  ;  the  third  destroys  all  independ- 
ency in  the  clergy  both  collectively  and  individually, 
and  makes  them  martyrs,  or  time-servers. 

This  system  is  the  predominant  one  in  this  country. 
It  is,  however,  not  adopted  by  all  our  religious  sects. 
The  Methodists  have  adopted  the  Catholic  system. 
They  depend  neither  on  the  state  nor  on  their  congre- 
gations for  the  support  of  their  ministers.  The 
church  invests  and  supports  its  own  clergy  out  of  its 
own  revenues  ;  and  whenever  it  becomes  wealthy,  it 
will  be  able  to  enslave  both  the  people  and  the  state. 
The  Methodists  are  the  only  sect  in  this  country  from 
which  much  danger  to  our  free  institutions  need  be  ap- 
prehended. Their  increase  in  numbers,  wealth,  and  re- 
spectability, is  rapid.  They  are  now,  we  believe,  the 
most  numerous  sect  in  the  Union  ;  and  some  of  their 
ministers  have  boasted  that  they  could  control  the  pol- 
icy of  the  government  any  day  they  should  please. 
This  boast  is  idle  now  ;  but  let  them  increase  for  fifty 
years  to  come,  as  they  have  for  fifty  years  past,  and  it 
will  not  be  an  idle  boast  then.  We  honor  the  evan- 
gelical zeal  of  the  Methodist  minister ;  we  honor  his 


Opposition  to  the  Priesthood.  35 

indefatigable  and  self-sacrificing  spirit ;  we  honor  his 
single-hearted  piety,  and  unaffected  humility  ;  but  we 
see  in  the  organization  of  his  Church  the  very  elements 
on  which  was  originally  based  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  which  wait  only  time  and  opportunity  to  repro- 
duce that  Church  in  all  its  most  revolting  features. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  also  modifies  the  volun- 
tary system  somewhat,  by  adopting  the  Catholic  sys- 
tem to  a  certain  extent.  It  is  an  organized  body, 
constituting  throughout  the  Union  a  grand  church 
establishment ;  not  recognised  by  law  indeed,  but  act- 
ing on  its  members  with  all  the  force  of  a  civil  gov- 
ernment. It  is  controlled  by  the  clergy  as  an  organ- 
ized body,  slightly  reinforced  by  an  infusion  of  lay 
delegates.  The  individual  church,  indeed,  pays  its 
clergyman  by  voluntary  contribution;  but  it  has  only 
a  partial  voice  in  selecting  its  pastor,  and  can  get  rid 
of  him  only  by  the  consent  of  the  presbytery,  or  by 
forfeiting  its  relation  to  the  Presbyterian  Church. 
Moreover,  its  pastor  cannot  enter  upon  the  discharge 
of  his  clerical  functions,  till  consecrated  by  the  pres- 
bytery ;  and  the  presbytery  will  not  consecrate  him  to 
the  pastoral  charge  of  a  church,  till  it  makes  pro- 
visions for  what  in  their  judgment  is  a  competent  sal- 
ary. Hence,  the  Presbyterian  clergyman  is  not  entire- 
ly dependent  on  the  people  of  his  charge.  If  they 
dislike  him  they  cannot  at  once  rid  themselves  of  him, 
unless  they  would  cease  to  belong  to  the  Church,  out 
of  which,  they  believe  there  is  no  salvation,  or  at 
least,  no  salvation  easily  to  be  come  at.  It  is  this 
independency  of  the  clergy  on  the  churches,  and  the 
strict  organization  of  the  clergy  into  an  ecclesiastical 
body,  and  in  relation  to  the  churches,  and  to  the  cler- 
gy themselves  as  individuals,  a  ruling  body,  possessed 
of  legislative,  judiciary,  and  executive  powers,  that 
have  made  many  of  the  friends  of  religion  and  liberty 
look  on  the  Presbyterian  Church  with  unpleasant  fore- 
bodings. We,  however,  fear  it  less  than  we  do  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  ;  because  in  its  organi- 
zation and  support,  the  popular  voice  has  some  slight 
5 


86  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

chance  of  admission.  The  only  Church  in  this  coun- 
try, unless  it  be  the  Baptist, —  which  in  this  respect  we 
believe  is  nearly  the  same, —  that  adopts  the  voluntary 
system  in  its  purity,  is  the  Congregational.  In  this 
Church,  each  clergyman  is  dependent  entirely  on  the 
congregation  over  which  he  is  settled.  The  congre- 
gation is  independent  of  every  other  congregation, 
and  is  capable  in  itself  of  managing  its  own  affairs. 
It  can  elect,  consecrate,  and  dismiss  its  own  minister; 
and  its  minister,  except  by  courtesy,  or  a  departure 
from  the  true  Congregational  theory,  is  responsible 
for  his  ministerial  conduct  solely  to  his  congregation, 
or  church.  He  has  no  authority  in  the  church,  ex- 
cept that  which  he  may  derive  from  appeals  to  its 
reason,  conscience,  or  prejudice.  The  Baptist  Church, 
we  believe,  departs  from  this  theory,  so  far  as  to  or- 
ganize its  clergy  into  a  sort  of  ecclesiastical  body, 
with  the  right  of  discipline  over  its  members.*  So 
also  does  the  sect  called  Christians,  together  with  the 
Universalists.  These  last  superadd  to  the  voluntary 
system,  therefore,  a  portion  of  the  Catholic  system,  to 
which,  by  the  by,  there  will  always  be,  in  a  religious 
community  where  the  voluntary  system  predominates, 
a  strong  tendency.  »l^ow,  under  this  purely  voluntary 
system,  as  under  both  of  the  others,  or  under  a  com- 
bination of  the  three,  the  individual  clergyman  is  en- 
slaved. Under  the  Catholic  system,  if  he  do  not 
preach  to  suit  the  body  of  which  he  is  a  member,  he 
will  be  deposed,  and  most  likely  excommunicated,  as 
we  have  lately  seen  in  the  case  of  the  Abbe  de  la 
Mennais.  Under  the  second,  if  he  do  not  preach  to 
suit  the  State,  he  will  have  his  salary  withheld,  and 
be  himself  ejected  from  his  charge,  and  forbidden  to 
preach ;  under  the  third,  if  he  do  not  preach  to  suit 
the  congregation,  or  rather  some  three  or  four  of  its 
most  prominent  and  aristocratic  members,  he  will  be 
dismissed,  and   sent  out   into   the  world  most   likely 


*  The  Baptist  Churches,  as  an  association,  we  believe,  have  the 
right  of  discipline  over  individual  churches. 


Opposilion  to  the  Priesthood.  37 

penniless,  with  a  stain  on  his  reputation,  and  a  wife 
and  children  dependent  on  him  for  that  support,  which 
he  knows  not,  sees  not,  where  in  the  world  to  procure. 
How  strong  then  is  the  temptation  of  the  preacher  to 
conform  to  the  wishes  or  the  prejudices  of  the  more 
influential  members  of  his,  congregation. 

Now,  if  we  look  at  our  parishes  throughout  the  great- 
er part  of  New  England,  we  shall  find  that  very  few 
of  them  would  be  able  to  support  a  clergyman,  if  some 
three  or  four  of  the  more  wealthy  members  should 
withhold  their  subscriptions  or  their  pew  tax.  These 
three  or  four  individuals, —  and  they  are  always  Qonser-  v/ 
atives,  —  thus  dictate  in  most  cases  the  course  of  the 
minister,  virtually  write  his  sermons,  and  determine 
the  doctrines  he  shall  preach,  the  moral  and  social 
objects  he  shall  labor  to  support.  If  they  are  dis- 
tillers, he  must  not  speak  of  the  sin  of  manufacturing 
and  vending  ardent  spirits  ;  if  they  are  factory  owners, 
the  iniquities  of  the  present  factory  system  he  must 
not  point  out ;  if  they  are  merchants,  he  must  not 
censure  the  unchristian  spirit  of  trade  which  the  mer-  ^ 
cantile  world  fosters  ;  if  slaveholders,  he  must  labor 
to  prove  that  slavery  is  sanctioned  by  all  laws  human 
and  divine ;  if  stockholders  in  some  rail-road  corpo- 
ration, he  must  laud  the  moral  influence  of  rail-roads  ; 
if  bankers,  he  must  beware  how  he  questions  in  public 
or  in  private  the  utility  of  paper  money.  This  is  no 
fancy  sketch.  Every  clergyman  knows,  or  may  know, 
the  truth  of  what  we  say.  We  have  ourselves  been 
in  the  ministry,  and  have  had  some  opportunity  of  / 
making  observations. 

We  may  lay  it  down  as  a  general  rule,  that  clergy- 
men are  solely  dependent  on  their  salaries  for  their 
means  of  living.  There  are  undoubtedly  some  excep- 
tions, but  the  exceptions  are  too  few  to  deserve  notice 
in  our  argument.  It  may  also  be  assumed,  that  very 
few  are  capable  of  deriving  a  support  from  any  other 
profession.  They  have  fitted  themselves  to  be  cler- 
gymen;  they  have  bent  all  their  energies  towards 
their  profession,  and  are  in  general  destitute  of  the 


/ 


38  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

knowledge  and  the  habits,  that  would  ensure  their  suc- 
cess in  any  other  pursuits,  at  least  a  success  that  would 
sustain  them  in  that  rank  in  life  which  they  occupy  as 
clergymen.  Moreover,  the  salaries  which  in  this 
country  are  paid,  with  a  few  exceptions,  are  so 
meagre,  that  no  clergyman  can,  without  a  miserly 
economy  which  his  parishioners  will  not  tolerate,  lay 
up  anything  against  the  reverses  which  may  come.  In 
a  large  majority  of  cases,  the  salary  is  probaby  con- 
sumed at  least  a  quarter  in  advance.  As  a  general 
rule,  then,  the  clergyman  is  dependent  on  his  congre- 
gation for  his  means  of  living.  These  means  come 
only  on  the  condition,  that  his  preaching  pleases  them  ; 
and  it  will  please  them  only  on  the  condition,  that  it  is 
conformed  to  their  faith,  their  tastes,  their  wishes, 
their  habits,  and  their  interests.  Consequently  the 
clergyman  has  the  strongest  inducements,  unless  he 
be  of  a  martyr-like  spirit,  which  we  have  no  reason  to 
€xpect  in  the  case  of  but  a  few,  to  conform  to  the 
views  and  wishes  of  his  congregation.  His  main 
study,  at  least  so  far  as  concerns  his  public  commu- 
nications, will  be,  on  all  great  points,  on  all  matters 
of  real  significance,  not  what  is  true,  but  what  will 
suit  his  people.  He  will  cultivate,  on  the  one  hand,  a 
spirit  of  compliance,  and  study  to  shape  his  doctrines 
and  exhortations  to  the  prejudices  of  the  people  ;  and 
on  the  other  hand  he  will  cultivate  the  talents  and 
manners  of  a  demagogue.  He  must  do  this,  or  fail  to 
retain  his  place,  if  he  be  a  man  of  any  force  of  char- 
acter at  all.  There  is  not  a  congregation  in  Christen- 
dom, that  will  pay  a  man  a  salary  for  preaching  what 
it  does  not  believe,  for  laboring  to  establish  an  order 
of  things  in  either  church  or  state,  which  it  regards 
as  unsound.  There  is,  then,  only  this  alternative  be- 
fore the  clergyman  ;  either  to  preach  to  suit  his  peo- 
ple, or  to  be  sullied  in  reputation,  and  sent  supper- 
less  to  bed.  Need  we  doubt  which  alternative  the 
majority  will  take  1 

It  may  be  said,  that  we  represent   the  clergyman  as 
aflfected  by  low  and  unworthy  motives.     Perhaps  so; 


opposition  to  the  Priesthood.  39 

but  we  believe  most  men  are  disposed  to  turn  an  eye 
to  their  bread  and  butter,  and  few  have  the  courage 
to  look  hunger  in  the  face  and  bid  it  welcome  to  them, 
and  especially  to  a  wife  and  little  ones  they  tenderly 
love.  It  is  easy  for  a  Lucullus  or  a  Seneca  to  praise 
poverty  ;  but  we  are  not  ashamed  to  own  that  we  have 
uniformly  found  poverty  a  very  disagreeable  com- 
panion, and  one  which  by  no  means  improves  by  fa- 
miliarity. We  are  not  among  those  who  sing  the 
praises  of  poverty.     Few  poor  men  are. 

Now,  these  and  many  other  considerations,  which  we 
have  not  room  to  specify  at  present,  have  induced  us.  to 
believe  that  the  purposes  of  the  Christian  ministry  can- 
not be  accomplished,  without  a  radical  change  in  the 
constitution  of  the  clergy.  We  would  abolish  all  sal- 
aried preaching,  not  because  we  have  any  objections  \ 
to  paying  for  intellectual  labor,  but  because  we  would  ' 
hold  out  no  inducement  to  a  man  to  preach  as  a  means 
of  gaining  a  livelihood,  and  because  we  would  have  / 
no  man  hindered  in  the  utterance  of  his  honest  con-  / 
victionSj  by  thinking  of  the  effect  such  utterance  may 
have  on  his  supply  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  If  a 
man  comes  forward  merely  to  utter  his  w^ord,  without 
asking  you  to  pay  him  for  uttering  it,  without  expect- 
ing any  pecuniary  reward  for  uttering  it,  he  will  speak 
with  some  sort  of  independence  and  effect.  Suppose 
you  do  not  believe  him,  suppose  you  are  angry  and 
close  your  church  doors  against  him ;  you  cannot 
starve  him  into  its  suppression.  He  has  the  means  of 
living  from  another  source,  and  like  St.  Paul,  can 
"  reason  and  dispute  in  his  own  hired  house,"  and 
say  to  you,  "  these  hands  have  supported  me,  and  can 
support  me  again."  The  Gospel  was  not  promulgated, 
and  the  church  built  up  in  the  face  of  a  hostile  world, 
by  a  salaried  clergy;  but  by  humble  fishermen  and 
tent-makers,  carpenters  and  carpenters'  sons,  —  men 
who  went  forth  with  their  staff  in  their  hand,  and  the 
love  of  God  in  their  hearts,  and  spoke  not  with  the 
enticing  words  of  man's  wisdom,  but  as  they  were 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost.     The  regular  clergy,  the 


^  Opposition  to  the  Priesthood. 

hired  defenders  of  religion,  and  the  servants  of  her 
altars,  were  foremost  among  their  enemies  and  perse- 
cutors, as  they  will  always  be  foremost  among  the 
persecutors  of  the  true  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  men 
imbued  with  the  true  apostolic  spirit,  and  determined 
to  overthrow  the  kingdom  of  Satan,  and  build  up  that 
of  God's  dear  Son. 

One  word  in  reference  to  our  views  of  the  manner 
in  which  a  Christian  ministry  should  be  constituted, 
and  we  close  this  part  of  our  subject.  The  Society  of 
Friends,  or  Quakers,  makes  the  nearest  approach  to 
<^  our  views,  on   this   point,  of  any  sect   with  which  we 

are  acquainted.  If  you  will  carry  out,  in  systematic 
consistency,  to  its  logical  results,  the  idea  with  which 
George  Fox  and  William  Penn  originally  started,  you 
will  have  the  constitution  of  both  the  church  and  the 
clergy,  which  we  are  desirous  of  introducing.  The 
Quakers  reject  the  common  notions  of  the  church  ; 
they  in  fact  recognise  no  church  but  the  invisible, 
spiritual  Church,  founded  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  built 
up  in  the  soul.  They  recognise  only  a  single  outward 
organization  of  mankind,  and  consequently  condemn 
both  church  and  state  as  they  now  are.  They  would 
organize  mankind ;  that  is,  they  would  have  a  social 
organization  of  the  race;  but  that  organization  must 
be  based  on  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion, 
and  the  teachings  of  the  Spirit.  This  is  what  we 
want. 

For  the  purposes  of  spiritual  edification  and  pro- 
gress, the  Quaker  idea  subdivides  the  community  at 
large  into  small  communities,  called  religious  meet- 
ings. These  little  communities,  or  rather  families,  erect 
each  a  convenient  meeting-house,  where  they  assem- 
ble, as  often  as  may  be  thought  advisible,  and  spend 
some  two  hours  in  silent  meditation,  or  in  listening  to 
religious  discourses.  We  would  do  the  same  in  every 
district,  or  parish,  if  you  please,  of  convenient  size. 
We  would  have  erected  a  plain,  substantial  meeting- 
house, which  should  be  the  property  of  the  parish. 
Thither  we  would  all  repair,  say  twice  a  week,  for 


Opposition  to  the  Priesthood.  41 

religious  edification.  When  assembled,  "we  would  sit 
in  silent  meditation,  unless  some  one  was  moved  by 
the  Spirit  of  God  to  speak.  This  silent  meditation, 
this  being  still  and  communing  with  the  Spirit  of  God, 
is  altogether  more  profitable  to  the  soul,  than  is  com- 
monly imagined.  The  most  imposing  spectacle,  we 
ever  witnessed,  was  a  whole  congregation,  sitting  in 
profound  silence,  dead  as  it  were  to  the  world  and 
its  cares,  and  lost  in  sweet  and  mystic  communion 
with  the  Father  of  Spirits.  This  silence  is  to  us  the 
sublimest,  and  we  have  often  found  it  the  most  in- 
spiriting, eloquence.  We  are  too  much  in  a  hurry  ; 
we  are  too  noisy,  too  clamorous  ;  and  we  know  not 
how  to  be  still,  and  see  the  wonderful  works  of  Provi- 
dence. The  lesson,  we  most  need  to  learn,  is  that  of 
being  still,  of  silent  meditation. 

If,  when  we  have  come  together,  there  be  one  in  our 
midst  who  has  a  word  pressing  for  utterance,  whoever 
he  be,  he  shall  be  at  liberty  to  utter  it.  The  only  re- 
strictions, we  would  tolerate,  are  merely  those  which 
may  be  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  order.  These 
restrictions,  the  meeting  should  be  competent  to  im- 
pose, as  a  standing  rule,  or  by-law,  subject  to  such 
alterations  as  experience  may  find  to  be  necessary. 
The  Quakers,  we  believe,  have  no  difficulty  in  preserv- 
ing order  in  their  meetings.  Where  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  is,  there  is  always  order  as  well  as  freedom. 

In  some  such  way  as  is  here  indicated,  it  strikes  us, 
that  we  may  secure  all  the  advantages  of  a  preached 
Gospel,  without  any  of  the  evils  we  have  specified, — 
without  the  necessity  of  resorting  to  a  clerical  body, 
or  an  organized  priesthood.  What  we  want  is  free 
thought  and  free  speech,  together  with  deliverance 
from  a  class  whose  interest  it  is,  as  a  class,  to  uphold 
things  as  they  are,  and  to  do  their  best  to  roll  back  the 
ever  advancing  waves  of  truth.  We  want  men  free  to 
think,  and  free  to  speak  what  they  think,  free  to  utter 
the  truth  which  comes  to  them,  and  in  the  very  tones 
in  which  it  comes  to  them,' — men  who  will  rebuke 
the  sin  they  abhor,  and  be  earnest  in  their  demands 


42  The  Proletaries. 

for  the  reforms  which  they  see  needed.  Secure  us  the 
end  here  implied,  and  you  may  organize  the  clergy  as 
you  please ;  we  shall  neither  oppose  you  nor  them. 

IV.  Our  account  of  the  condition  of  the  laboring 
classes,  we  have  been  told,  is  exaggerated  and  false. 
This  objection  would  have  some  weight  with  us,  were 
it  not  urged  exclusively  by  those  who  live  by  availing 
themselves  of  the  labors  of  the  workingmen,  and  who, 
therefore,  have  a  direct  interest  in  keeping  them  as 
they  are. 

We  are  not  ignorant  that  there  is  a  class  of  our  fellow 
citizens,  who  stare  at  us  as  if  we  were  out  of  our  wits, 
or  possessed  of  no  ordinary  malignancy,  when  we 
represent  the  workingman  as  still  a  slave,  and  de- 
mand his  enfranchisement.  In  their  estimation  he  is 
already  enfranchised,  already  a  free  man,  in  the  full 
significance  of  the  term;  and  no  more  dependent  on 
the  capitalist,  than  the  capitalist  is  on  him.  These 
people,  who  think  so,  are,  we  must  admit,  very  decent 
people  in  their  way,  and  we  desire  to  have  for  them 
all  becoming  respect.  On  several  subjects  they  un- 
questionably have  considerable  intelligence  and  sound 
views.  Did  we  wish  to  ascertain  the  rates  of  ex- 
change on  England  or  France,  the  prixies  of  stocks, 
broadcloths,  cottons,  or  tape,  and  such  like  matters, 
there  are  no  people  in  the  world  we  would  more  wil- 
lingly consult,  or  with  greater  deference.  But  in 
questions  like  those  which  now  concern  us, —  ques- 
tions which  relate  to  the  bearing  of  social  or  econom- 
ical systems,  the  actual  progress  of  civilization,  or  the 
means  of  advancing  it,  we  must  be  held  excusable,  if 
we  cannot  in  all  respects  take  them  for  our  masters. 
If  the  cobbler  may  lend  Phidias  some  useful  hints  in 
adjusting  a  slipper  to  the  foot  of  his  statue,  he  can 
rarely  do  it  in  moulding  the  head  and^  features  of 
Jupiter  or  Apollo. 

\/For  ourselves,  we  were  born  and  reared  in  the  class 
of  proletaries ;  and  we  have  merely  given  utterance  to 
their   views  and  feelings.     We  have   said  little  con- 


llie  ProhtarUs.  4S 

cernins;  their  condition  not  warranted  by  what  we 
have  ourselves  either  seen  or  felt.  We  have  made  no 
random  statement,  and  drawn  no  hasty  inference.  We 
know  whereof  we  affirm;  and  shall  abide  by  what  we 
have  already  affirmed ;  at  least,  until  the  laboring  , 
classes  themselves  rise  up  and  accuse  us  of  misrepre- 
senting them. 

We  have  read,  with  as  much  attention  and  patience 
as  could  be  reasonably  expected  of  us,  the  various 
arguments  offered  by  our  conservative  friends  to  prove 
the  desirableness  of  the  laboring  man's  condition. 
Some  of  these  arguments  seem  almost  specious  at 
first  sight ;  but  we  had  examined  them  all  long  before 
we  published  our  article  on  the  laboring  classes,  and, 
without  claiming  any  credit  for  extraordinary  abilities, 
we  believe  we  could  have  furnished  those,  who  urge 
them,  arguments  much  more  to  their  purpose.  Our 
good  friends  would  do  well  to  brush  up  their  ideas, 
purge  their  vision,  and  look  a  little  deeper  into  the  sub- 
ject. It  may  be  we  have  studied  it  somewhat  longer  and 
on  more  sides  than  they  have;  and  they  must  not  think 
that  arguments,  which  would  do  no  special  honor  to  a 
clever  lad  of  a  dozen  years  of  age,  are  precisely  the 
thing  with  which  we  are  to  be  overwhelmed.  They 
merely  amuse  us  with  their  simplicity,  or  grieve  us 
with  their  ignorance.  We  are  sorry  to  say  that,  thus 
far,  they  have  shown  by  no  means  that  acquaintance 
with  the  subject  generally,  which  their  pretensions  to 
wisdom,  and  the  pains,  which  have  unquestionably  been 
taken  with  their  moral  and  intellectual  culture,  should 
have  led  one  beforehand  to  expect.  t 

This,  however,  may  be  easily  accounted  for.  The  class  ^ 
of  persons,  who  have  been  loudest  in  their  condemna- 
tion of  us,  are  the  JVouveaux  riches,  parvenus,  upstarts, 
men  who  have  themselves  come  up  from  the  class  of 
proletaries,  and  who  have  made  it  a  virtue  to  forget "  the 
rock  whence  they  were  hewn/'  Standing  now  on  the 
shoulders  of  their  brethren,  they  are  too  elevated  to 
see  what  is  going  on  at  the  base  of  the  social  organi- 
zation. Would  you  know  what  is  going  on  down 
6 


44  The  Proletaries. 

there,  you-  must  interrogate  those    who  dwell  there, 
and  feel   the  pressure  that  is   on   them.     One  would 
not  interrogate   the   rider   in    order  to   ascertain    the 
;     sensations  the  horse  has  in  being  ridden. 

Then,  again,  these  persons  never  had  any  sympathy 
with  the    class    of  proletaries.     They   early   adopted 
that    convenient    morality,    pithily   expressed    in    the 
maxim,  "  Look  out    for  Number    One  ;  "    and  conse- 
quently   have     never    studied    their    condition,    ex- 
cept so  far  as   they  could  avail   themselves  of  it  as  a 
means  of  their  own  elevation-     They  have   found   the 
condition  of  the  workingmen   a   very  convenient  help 
to  those,  who  are   skilful  enough  to  avail   themselves 
of  it   as   a   means   of  rising   to   the   top   of  the  social 
ladder ;   and  therefore   they  have   inferred  that   it  is 
good  enough  for  those   who   are  always  to  remain  in 
^^Jt.      Would  these    upstartsi   be    willing    to    exchange 
V  places  with  the  workingmen  ?     If  so,  let   us   see  them 
I  do  it ;  if  not,  let  them  be  silent. 

Moreover,  these  people  have  risen  in  the  social  scale 
to  be,  what  one  of  their  number  calls,  "  the  better  sort," 
and  they   very  naturally  are  anxious   to  have  us   un- 
1  derstand  that  it  has^  been  by  the  blessing  of  God  and 
'their  own  virtue.    ,  They  wish  us   to   believe  that  they 
are  what  they  are,   because  they   are   wiser,  more  tal- 
ented, more  skilful,  and  more  virtuous  than  those  they 
have  left  behind  them.  .  They  wish   to   be  able  to  say, 
**  God,  I  thank  thee,  that  I  am  better  than   these  poor 
wretches,  who  toil  on  from  one  year's  end  to  another, 
and  yet  accumulate  nothing."      This   is  no  doubt  a 
1    very    pleasant  manner    of  addressing    the    Deity  ;    it 
i    puts  one  in   admirable  humor  with   oneself,  and  saves 
one  from  any  compunctious  twinges  of  conscience,  one 
'    might  have  on  hearing  the  cry  of  the  poor  and  needy. 
Now,  if  you  say  the  proletaries  are  in  a  hopeless  con- 
dition, if  you  say  they  cannot  of  themselves  rise  from 
their  condition,  you  take  away   a   considerable  portion 
of  these  people's  personal  merit,  and   lower  their  fan- 
cied superiority  several  degrees.    It  therefore  behooves 
them  to  maintain  that  the  condition  of  the  proletaries 


The  Proletaries.  45 

— I 
is    good    enough.     If    the    proletaries  are    poor    and 

wretched,  the  fault  is  all   their  own.     It  is  owing  to 
their  incapacity,  their  indolence,  or  their  vice.     Were  ; 
we  not  once  poor,  and  are  we  not  now  rich  and  respec- 
table ? 

We  suppose  by  this  we  are  to  understand,  that  all 
may  become  rich  and  respectable,  if  they  would. 
Now,  do  the  persons  of  whom  we  speak  desire  us  to 
understand  them  as  claiming  all  the  capacity,  all  the  \ 
virtue,  and  all  the  respectability  of  the  race  1  Pray,  - 
what  evidence  do  they  give  of  their  exclusive  claims 
in  this  respect?  Has  no  very  indifferent  mechanic' 
grown  rich  by  availing  himself  of  the  superior  skill 
and  workmanship  of  his  journeyman  ?  Is  the  mere 
fact  of  their  success  in  the  accumulation  of  wealth  a 
proof  of  their  superior  merit  ?J  Some  crabbed  old 
author,  we  once  read,  says,  "  God  usually  gives  the 
greatest  wealth  to  the  greatest  fools,  that  he  may 
show  thereby  to  the  world  its  utter  worthlessness  ;  " 
and  we  have  sometimes  suspected  that  the  old  author 
had  not  spent  all  his  life  in  his  closet. 

"  But  we   have    risen    and    so  may    others."     Yes, 
doubtless  ;  some   others  ;  but   all  others  ?     How  have 
you  risen  ?     By  the  productive  industry  of  your  own 
hands  ?     By  hr  rd   work.     Aye,  but   by   what   kind   of 
hard  work  ?     Has  it  not  been  by  hard  work  in  siudy-'i 
ing  how  you   could  turn    the   labors  of  others  to  yourj 
own  profit ;   that    is,    transfer   the  proceeds    of  labory 
from  the  pockets  of  the  laborer  to  your  own  ?     If  you 
had  had  no  laboring  class,  dependent   entirely  on   its 
labor    for    the    means  of  living,  whose  industry    you 
could  lay   under   contribution,   would   you    ever   have 
risen   to  your    present   wealth  ?  j  Of  course   not.     Of  , 
course,  then,  only  a   certain   number   of  individuals  of  > 
the    laboring  classes   could,   even   with  your  talents,  | 
skill,   and   matchless   virtues,  rise   as    you  have  done.  ) 
One  rises  from  the  class  of  proletaries  only  by  making 
those,  he  leaves   behind,  the    lever    of    his   elevation. 
This,   therefore,    necessarily   implies  that   there  must 
always  be  a  laboring  class,   and    of  course  that  the 


> 


46  Thi  Proletaries. 

means,  which  this  or  that  laborer  uses  for  his  indi- 
vidual elevation,  cannot  in  the  nature  of  things  be 
used  by  all  of  his  class. 

But  our  conservative  friends  shift  their  ground, 
when  driven  to  this  point,  and  take  refuge  in  Provi- 
dence ;  or  rather  seek  to  make  Providence  the  scape- 
goat for  their  social  sins.  They  allege  that  Providence 
has  ordained  all  these  distinctions,  has  made  some  to 
be  rich  and  others  to  be  poor.  It  is  all  God's  doing. 
That  vain  pretender  to  piety,  who  grows  rich  out  of 
the  labors  of  those  half-starved  sempstresses,  and 
who  tells  the  poor  girl  when  she  asks  for  more  wageSy 
"  My  dear,  I  give  you  all  I  can  afford  ;  I  have  to  pay 
so  much  now  for  what  I  have  done,  that  I  can  hardly 
live  by  my  business,  and  I  would  throw  it  up,  were  it 
not  a  Christian  duty  to  give  employment  to  those  who 
otherwise  might  starve  or  do  worse, —  this  base  hypo- 
crite, who,  as  the  Abbe  de  La  Mennais  says,  "has 
no  name  out  of  hell,"  grows  rich  by  Divine  Appoint- 
ment, does  he?  And  you  accuse  us  of  infidelity,  for 
uttering  the  natural  indignation  of  a  virtuous  soul  at 
such  foul  blasphemy  ?  We  have  looked  now  and  then 
into  the  upper  classes  of  society,  if  not  often,  at  least 
often  enough  to  see  their  hollow-heartedness  and 
loathsome  depravity  ;  and  we  assure  them,  that  not 
to  us  will  it  answer  to  preach,  that  they  are  the  dis- 
tinguished favorites  of  Heaven.  The  miserable  va- 
grant, who  has  no  lodging  but  the  bare  earth,  and 
whom  your  police  punishes  for  sleeping  on  the  only 
bed  he  can  procure,  often  surpasses,  in  a  true,  manly 
virtue,  many  a  loud-boasting  and  loud-boasted  phar- 
isee,  whose  praises  may  be  read  in  the  public  journals, 
and  heard  from  the  pulpit.  No;  "  Go  to,  now,  ye  rich 
men,  weep  and  howl  for  your  miseries  that  shall  come 
upon  you.  Your  riches  are  corrupted,  and  your  gar- 
ments are  moth-eaten.  Your  gold  and  silver  are  can- 
kered, and  the  rust  of  them  shall  be  a  witness  against 
you,  and  shall  eat  your  flesh  as  it  were  fire.  Ye 
have  heaped  up  treasure  for  the  last  days,  (or  the  last 
time.)      Behold    the  hire   of  the  laborers,  who  have 


The  Proletaries,  47 

reaped  down  your  fields,  which  of  you  is  kept  back  by 
fraud,  crieth ;  and  the  cries  of  them  that  have  reaped 
have  entered  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  of  Sabbaoth. 
Ye  have  lived  in  pleasure  on  the  earth,  and  been 
wanton  ;  ye  have  nourished  your  hearts  as  in  a  day 
of  slaughter.  Ye  have  condemned  and  killed  the  just ; 
and  he  doth  not  resist  you."* 

So  does  an  inspired  Apostle  address  you,  ye  rich 
men;  and  Jesus  himself  tells  you,  that  it  is  "easier 
for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  than 
for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  "  and 
that  "if  ye  would  be  perfect,  ye  must  sell  what  ye 
have  and  give  it  to  the  poor,  and  follow  him."  Have 
ye  the  effrontery  then  to  tell  a  man  who  has  the  New 
Testament  before  him,  and  who  can  read  it,  that  ye 
are  rich  by  the  express  appointment  of  God,  as  a  re- 
ward for  your  superior  capacities  and  virtues  ?  Say 
rather  through  God's  forbearance  and  long  suffering, 
waiting  to  be  gracious  to  the  sinner  that  repents  and 
turns  from  his  evil  ways.  A  terrible  book  for  you,  ye 
scribes  and  pharisees,  ye  rich  and  great  of  this  world, 
is  this  same  New  Testament  !  "  Woe  unto  you,"  it 
says,  "  for  ye  are  like  unto  whited  sepulchres,  which 
indeed  appear  beautiful  outward,  but  within  are  full 
of  dead  men's  bones,  and  all  uncleanness  ;  because 
ye  build  the  tombs  of  the  prophets,  and  garnish  the 
sepulchres  of  the  righteous,  and  say.  If  we  had  been 
in  the  days  of  our  fathers,  we  would  not  have  been 
partakers  with  them  in  the  blood  of  the  prophets. 
Wherefore  ye  be  witnesses  that  ye  are  the  children  of 
them  that  killed  the  prophets.  Fill  ye  up  then  the 
measure  of  your  fathers.  Ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of 
vipers,  how  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell!" 
A  terrible  book,  this  New  Testament !  And  did  ye  but 
believe  it,  there  would  be  to  you  nothing  but  a  fear- 
ful looking  for  of  wrath  and  fiery  indignation  to  de- 
vour you  as  the  adversaries  of  God  and  his  children. 

*  James,  v.  1-8,  —  a  good  lesson  for  the  rich. 


48  The  Proletaries. 

Be  sure  now,  and  call  him  who  reads  this  terrible  book 
in  your  hearing  an  infidel,  as  the  thief,  when  the  hue 
and  cry  is  up,  is  loudest  in  calling  out  "  stop  thief," 
that  he  may  turn  the  pursuit  from  himself. 

"But  what  would  you  that  we  should  do?  Do  we 
not  pay  the  market  price  for  labor?"  Ay,  the  market 
price  ;  but  who  fixes  the  market  price  ;  you,  or  the 
laborer  ?  Why  do  you  employ  him  ?  Is  it  not  that 
you  may  grow  rich?  Why  does  he  seek  employment? 
Is  it  not  that  he  may  not  die  of  hunger,  he,  his  wife, 
-  /  and  little  ones  ?  Which  is  the  more  urgent  necessiiy, 
^  that  of  growing  rich,  or  that  of  guarding  against  hun- 

'  ger  ?  You  can  live,  though  you  do  not  employ  the  la- 
borer; but,  if  he  find  not  employment,  he  must  die. 
He  is  then  at  your  mercy.  You  have  over  him  the 
power  of  life  and  death.  It  is  then  of  his  necessity 
that  you  avail  yourselves,  and  by  taking  advantage 
of  that  you  reduce  the  price  of  labor  to  the  minimum 
v/^  of  human  subsistence,*  and  then  grow  rich  by  pur- 
chasing it.  Would  you  be  willing  to  labor  through 
life  as  he  does,  and  live  on  the  income  he  receives  ? 
Not  at  all.  You  would  regard,  as  the  greatest  of 
calamities  which  could  befall  you,  that  of  losing  your 
property,  and  being  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  sup- 
porting yourselves  and  families  on  the  wages  you 
could  receive  as  common  laborers.  Do  you  not  then 
see  that  you  condemn  in  the  most  positive  terms  the 
condition  of  the  proletary,  that  you  declare  plainer 
than  any  words  we  can  use,  that  you  look  upon  that 
condition  as  a  serious  calamity?  What  right  have 
you  then  to  maintain  that  a  condition,  which  you  re- 
gard with  horror  so  far  as  concerns  yourselves,  is 
good  enough  for  your  brethren  ?  And  why  complain 
of  us  for  calling  upon  you  to  do  all  in  your  power,  so 
to  arrange  matters,  that  no  one  shall  be  doomed  to 
that  condition?  Why  do  you  not,  as  the  Christian 
law,  of  doing  unto  others  as  you  would  be  done  by, 

*  The  only  drawback  on  this  statement  is  the  competition  among^ 
eapitalists  themselves. 


The  Proletaries.  49 

commands  you,  set  yourselves  at  work  in  earnest  to 
remodel  the  institution  of  property,  so  that  all  shall 
be  proprietors,  and  you  be  relieved  from  paying  wages, 
and  the  proletary  from  the  necessity  of  receiving 
them  ?  This  is  what  we  would  have  you  do  ;  what 
we  hold  you  bound  to  do,  and  which  you  must  do,  or 
the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of  the  laborer  will  lie  at 
your  door,  and  his  cries  will  ascend  to  the  ears  of  an 
avenging  God  against  you,  —  a  God  who  espouses  the 
cause  of  the  poor  and  needy,  and  has  sworn  to 
avenge  them  on  their  oppressors.  This  you  know, 
if  you  believe  at  all  in  that  Gospel,  which  you  so 
wrongfully  accuse  us  of  denying. 

It  is  said  that  we  have  prefered  the  slave  system  to 
that  of  free  labor,  and  in  so  doing  have  slandered  the 
laboring  classes.  We  understand  this  objection.  It  is 
a  device  of  the  Devil.  No  doubt,  they  who  thrive  on  theA 
labors  of  their  brethren,  would  fain  make  the  laboring 
classes  feel  that  we  have  wronged  them,  and  have 
shown  contempt  for  them.  But  this  device  will  not 
succeed.  It  is  not  contempt  for  the  workingman  we 
have  shown,  but  sympathy  with  his  wrongs  ;  and 
if  we  have  pointed  out  the  evils  of  his  condition,  it 
has  not  been  to  exult  over  him,  but  to  rebuke  the  upper 
classes  for  their  injustice.  It  has  been  to  show  the  I 
hollowness  of  that  friendship  which  these  classes 
profess  for  him. 

We  have  never  pretended  that  the  proletary  is 
no  advance  on  the  slave;  he  is  in  advance  of  the 
slave ;  for  his  rights  as  a  man  are  legally  recog- 
nised, though  not  in  fact  enjoyed  ;  for  he  is  nearer 
the  day  of  his  complete  enfranchisement,  and  has  a 
greater  moral  force  and  more  instruments  with  which 
to  effect  it.  It  is  only  on  the  supposition  that  one 
or  the  other  is  to  be  a  permanent  system,  that  we 
have  given  the  preference  to  the  slave  system  over 
that  of  labor  at  wages.  We  however  oppose  with  all 
our  might  both  systems.  We  would  have  neither  the 
slave  nor  the  proletary.  We  would  combine  labor  and 
capital  in  the  same  individual.     What  we  object  to,  is 


50  The  Proletaries. 

the  division  of  society  into  two  classes,  of  which  one 
class  owns  the  capital,  and  the  other  performs  the 
labor.  If,  however,  this  division  must  always  take 
place,  we  prefer  the  slave  system  which  prevails  at 
the  South,  to  the  free  labor  system  which  prevails 
here  at  the  North.  And  we  are  not  alone  in  this  opin- 
ion. We  have  conversed  with  many  intelligent  me- 
chanics of  this  city,  who  have  resided  at  the  South, 
and  they  all  with  one  voice  sustain  the  view  we  have 
here  given.  They  all  tell  us  that,  if  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  laborer  here  must  remain  forever,  they 
should  regard  it  as  worse  than  that  of  the  Southern 
slave. 

Why  is  it,  we  would  ask,  that  so  few  of  the 'real 
workingmen  here  are  abolitionists  ?  Why  do  they 
interest  themselves  so  little  in  the  fredom  of  the  negro 
slave  ?  (It  is  because  they  feel  that  they  themselves 
are  virtually  slaves,  while  mocked  with  the  name  of 
freemen,  ancl_that  the  movements  in  behalf  of  freedom 
should  be^first)  directed  towards  their  emancipation. 
With  them  we  find  friends  and  supporters  in  the 
course  we  take,  and  we  become  endeared  to  them,  just 
in  proportion  as  the  upper  classes  condemn  us  ;  for 
they  feel  the  truth  of  what  we  say. 

We  know  that  the  law  declares  these  workingmen 
equal  to  any  other  members  of  society  and  the  body- 
politic ;  but  what  avails  the  declaration  of  the  law, 
when  those,  in  whose  favor  it  is,  cannot  take  advantage 
of  it  ?  What  avails  the  theoretic  recognition  of  their 
rights,  when  they  want  the  power  to  make  them  recog- 
nised in  fact  ?  Nor,  in  truth,  is  the  law  so  impartial 
as  it  would  seem.  The  laws  of  this  Commonwealth, 
as  interpreted  by  the  courts,  allow,  we  believe,  the 
employer  to  inflict  corporal  punishment  on  the  em- 
ployed. In  the  State  of  New  York,  laborers  have  been 
fined  and  imprisoned  for  refusing  to  work  at  the  wages 
offered  them ;  or  rather,  for  agreeing  together,  not  to 
sell  their  labor  unless  at  higher  price  than  they  had 
hitherto  been  paid.  Yet  manufacturers,  flour  dealers, 
physicians,  and  lawyers,  may  band  together  on  the 


The  Proletaries. 


51 


same  principle,  for  a  similar  end,  form  their  Trades 
Unions,  and  no  law  is  violated.  A  rich  man  may  get 
drunk  in  a  gentlemanly  way  in  his  own  house,  and  be 
carried  by  his  servants  to  his  bed,  and  the  law  is 
silent,  while  the  poor  man,  who  has  taken  a  glass  too  ' 
much,  and  is  seen  intoxicated,  shall  be  fined,  or  im- 
prisoned, or  both.  A  man  who  belongs  to  the  upper 
classes,  may  be  an  habitual  drunkard,  and  the  law 
shall  not  interfere  ;  but  if  a  poor  man  is  convicted  of 
habitual  drunkenness,  he  shall  be  sent  to  the  House  of  \ 
Correction.  A  poor  man  accu;sed  of  a  crime  is  con-  * 
victed  in  advance,  —  for  he  is  poor,  —  and  is  pretty 
sure  to  be  punished.  A  rich  man  accused,  and  con- 
victed even,  is  pretty  sure  to  get  clear  of  the  punish-  / 
ment. 

Our  penal  code  bears  with  peculiar  severity  on  the 
poor.  In  numerous  cases,  the  punishment  is  fine  or 
imprisonment.  Now,  in  all  these  cases,  the  poor  alone 
are  really  punished.  The  rich  man,  if  guilty,  can 
easily  pay  the  fine,  without  feeling  it.  The  poor  can 
rarely  pay  the  fine  ;  and  if  they  do,  it  is  generally  by 
surrendering  all  they  have,  and  by  drawing  some 
months  in  advance  on  their  labor;  in  which  case,  the 
punishment  of  a  fine  of  twenty  dollars  falls  as  heavy 
on  the  poor  man  as  a  fine  of  as  many  hundreds  would 
on  a  rich  man.  But  generally  the  poor  man  cannot 
pay  his  fine,  and  consequently  must  be  imprisoned 
three  or  six  months  for  an  offence,  from  which  a  rich 
man  may  get  clear  by  paying  five,  ten,  or  twenty  dol- 
lars out  of  his  superfluity.  This  too  in  a  land  of 
equal  laws  !  .-^ 

Then,  again,  the  administration  of  justice  is  so  ex-l 
pensive,  that  the  poor  man  is  rarely  able  to  resort  to  it. 
It  costs  too  much.  Is  he  injured  in  his  person  1  He 
must  give  security  for  the  expenses  of  the  court,  before 
he  can  have  even  the  process  for  his  redress  com- 
mence. Are  his  wages  withheld  ?  It  will  cost  him 
more  to  compel  their  payment,  even  if  successful, 
which  he  can  rarely  count  on  being,  than  they  amount 
7 


1^ 


52  The  Proletaries. 

to.  He  must  pocket  the  insults  offered  him,  and  aban- 
;  don  his  righteous  claims,  when  not  freely  allowed.* 
Is  a  poor  man  suspected  of  some  crime,  although 
innocent,  and  it  shall  turn  out  that  he  is  innocent, 
he  is  forthwith  arrested  and  shut  up  in  gaol,  where  he 
must  w^it  two,  three,  four,  six  months,  or  longer,  for 
a  trial.  It  is  not  long  since  a  poor  sailor  died  in  the 
Hospital  where  we  are  now  writing,  who  had  been 
kept  in  close  confinement  for  nine  months  or  more, 
on  a  charge  of  mutiny,  which  charge  the  court  de- 
clared unfounded.  The  poor  fellow's  time  was  lost,  a 
robust  constitution  was  broken  down,  and  he  merely 
passed  from  the  prison  to  the  Hospital  to  die.  But 
had  he  lived,  what  remuneration  would  he  have  re- 
ceived from  society  for  the  wrong  done  him?  But  a 
rich  man,  when  arrested,  can  in  most  cases  find  bail, 
and  be  at  liberty,  and  about  his  business,  till  the  trial 
comes  on.  But  who  will  bail  the  poor  man  1  The 
poor  man's  time,  too,  is  valuable  to  him.  His  labors 
are  necessary  to  the  support  of  his  family.  But  this  is 
nothing.  "  He  is  cast  into  prison  without  any  care  for 
his  infirm  old  mother,  for  his  wife,  or  his  children. 
There,  in  that  prison,  in  the  midst  of  what  a  corrupt 
society  has  of  the  most  unclean  and  perverse,  he 
counts  painfully  the  day$  which  separate  him  from  his 

*  A  calculation  was  made  in  the  State  of  New  York  a  few  years 
since,  by  wliich  it  was  shown  that  the  expenses  attending  the  legal 
collection  of  debts,  —  taking  the  state  at  large,  —  amounted  to  more 
than  the  debts  collected.  In  making  this  estimate,  the  loss  of  time, 
interruption  of  business  to  both  parties,  and  to  witnesses,  must  be 
taken  into  the  account,  as  well  as  the  mere  legal  costs  of  suits. 

We  will  add  one  item  here,  not  added  in  the  text,  to  prove  the 
slavery  of  the  proletaries.  The  great  mass  of  these  are  more  or 
less  in  debt  to  the  capitalists,  or  employer  class.  This  tells  the 
whole  story.  The  nian  who  is  in  debt  is  a  slave,  and  can  no  longer 
meet  iiis  creditor  on  torms  of  equality.  He  must  submit  to  all  the 
Ui8ultf«  offered  him.  The  feeling  on  this  subject  is  expressed  by  a 
not  unfrequent  remark,  made^by  a  poor  man,  when  insulted  by  some 

Furse-proud  neighbor.  "I  will  pay  him  what  I  owe  him,  and  then 
'11  give  him  a  piece  of  my  mind."  Then,  imprisonment  for  debt  is 
by  no  means  abolished  in  any  state  in  the  Union.  There  is  not  a 
poor  debtor  in  this  Commonwealth,  whom  his  creditor  cannot  send  to 
gaol  to-morrow,  and  lock  him  up  too  with  felons.' 


The  Proletaries,  53 

family.  He  represents  to  himself  their  tears^  their 
sufferings,  their  anguish ;  he  hears  during  the  night, 
in  the  fever  of  his  half-sleep,  each  one  of  them  cry, 
"  I  am  hungry  !  "  *  But  what  is  all  this  to  those,  who 
are  revelling  at  their  ease  in  their  palaces  at  home, 
or  gaining  wealth  and  honors  by  administering  the 
laws  1 

But  we  can"  pursue  this  subject  no  further  at  present. 
What  we  have  said,  may  suffice  to  show  that  we  could, 
were  we  disposed,  say  somewhat  in  defence  of  the 
account  we  gave  of  the  condition  of  the  laboring 
classes.  But  we  forbear.  And  for  our  forbearance, 
our  conservative  brethren  are  our  debtors.  Were  we 
desirous  of  stirring  up  the  wrath  of  the  laboring 
classes,  as  they  say  we  are,  they  would  find  us  speak- 
ing in  somewhat  other  tones,  and  making  an  appeal, 
which  would  be  responded  to  from  every  section  of 
our  country,  in  no  soft,  lulling  strains,  but  with  one 
loud  burst  of  indignation,  which  should  ring,  as  a  sum- 
mons to  the  last  judgment,  on  the  heart  of  every  man 
who  would  lord  it  over  his  brother.  But  we  delight 
not  in  such  appeals  ;  our  ears  have  no  pleasure  in 
such  responses.  We  would,  if  we  could,  unloose  no 
angry  passion.  We  see  society  as  it  is.  We  see 
whence  it  has  become  what  it  is.  It  is  the  growth  of 
ages.  No  one  man,  and  no  class  of  men  now  living 
are  wholly  responsible  for  its  vices.  All  classes  are  ' 
victims  of  systems  and  organizations,  which  have 
come  down  to  us  from  the  past.  We  know  not  in 
reality,  who  suffer  the  most  by  the  present  order  of  f 
things.  If  we  deplore  the  condition  of  the  laborer, 
we  by  no  means  envy  that  of  the  capitalist.  We  know 
not,  indeed,  which  most  to  pity.  All  are  sufferers.  J 
The  cry  of  distress  comes  to  us  from  all  classes  of 
society.  All  are  in  a  false  position;  all  are  out  of 
their  true  condition,  as  free,  high-minded,  virtuous 
men.  And  instead  of  weeping,  or  criminating,  we 
would  call  upon  all,  whether  high  or  low,  rich  or  poor, 

*  Abb^  de  la  Mennais.    D'Esclavage  moderne.' 


54  Descent  of  Property. 

to  look  at  things  as  they  are,  and  set  themselves  at 
work  in  earnest,  and  in  good  faith,  to  ascertain  the 
remedy  needed,  and  to  apply  it. 

\y.  The  great  evil  of  all  modern  society,  in  relation 
to  the  material  order,  is  the  separation  of  the  capitalist 
from  the  laborer,  —  the  division  of  the  community  into 
two  classes,  one  of  which  ow^ns  the  funds,  and  the 
other  of  which  performs  the  labor,  of  production. 

This  division  obtains  throughout  the  civilized  world, 
but  is  less  clearly  marked  with  us,  than  anywhere  else. 
To  a  considerable  extent,  our  agricultural  population 
combines  the  proprietor  and  laborer  in  the  same  indi- 
vidual ;  and-  where  this  is  not  the  case,  the  condition 
of  the  proletaries,  or  hired  men,  as  we  call  them, 
presents  its  most  favorable  aspect,  —  at  least  so  far 
as  the  non-slaveholding  states  are  concerned.  The 
hired  men  in  the  agricultural  districts  are  hardly  dis- 
tinguished from  their  employers.  They  are  as  well 
dressed,  as  well  educated,  work  no  harder,  and  mingle 
with  them  very  nearly  on  terms  of  equality  in  the 
general  intercourse  of  society. 

But  this  is  not  universally  true,  and  is  becoming 
less  and  less  so  every  year.  It  is  said  that  our  agri- 
cultural population  is  rising  in  wealth,  intelligence, 
and  refinement,  and  this  is  unquestionably  true  of 
landed  proprietors.  The  proportion  of  what  we  term 
gentlemen  farmers  is,  no  doubt,  rapidly  increasing. 
But  this,  while  it  speaks  well  for  the  proprietor,  tells 
a  mournful  tale  for  the  proletary.  Where  the  man 
who  owns  the  plough  holds  it,  there  can  be  no  great 
disparity  betw^een  the  employer  and  employed  ;  but 
this  disparity  necessarily  increases  just  in  proportion 
as  the  owner  of  the  plough  employs  another  to  hold  it. 
The  distapce  between  the  owner  of  the  farm,  and  the 
men  who  cultivate  it,  is,  therefore,  becoming  every  day 
greater  and  greater. 

But  it  is  in  our  cities,  large  towns,  and  manufactur- 
ing villages,  that  the  condition  of  the  laboring  popu- 
lation is  the  most  unfavorable.     The  distinction  be- 


Descent  of  Property.  56 

tween  the  capitalist  and  the  proletary,  in  these,  is  as 
strongly  marked  as  it  is  in  the  old  world.     The  dis- 
tance between  the   wife   and   daughters  of  an  Abbot 
Lawrence,  and  the  poor  factory  girl   employed   in  his 
mills,  is  as  great  as  that  between  the  wife  and  daugh- 
ters of  an  English  nobleman,  and  the  daughter  of  one 
of  his  tenants,  and  the  intercourse  less  frequent.     In- 
termarriage between  the  families   of  the   wealthy  fac- 
tory owners,  and  those  of /the   operatives,  is   as  much 
an  outrage  on  the  public  sense  of  propriety,  as  it  was 
in  ancient  Rome  between  the  patricians  and  plebeians, 
—  almost  as  much  as  it  would  be  at  the  south  between  j 
Vv   the  family  of  a  planter  and  that  of  one  of  his  slaves.      J 
^       Still,  taking   our  country  throughout,  the   condition  / 
of  the  proletary  population  has  been,  and  is  altogether 
superior  here  to  what  it   is   in   any  other  part  of  the 
civilized  world.     We   do  not,  however,  attribute   this 
fact  to  our  democratic  institutions,  nor  to  the  adoption 
of  more    enlightened    systems  of  social,   political,  or 
domestic  economy,  than  are  adopted  elsewhere.     It  is 
owing  to   causes    purely    accidental,    and    which    are 
rapidly  disappearing.     The  first   of   these  accidental 
causes  may  be  traced  to  the   original   equality  of  the 
first    settlers   of   this   country.     But   this    equality  no 
longer  exists.     Fortunes  are  said  to  be  more  unequal 
with  us  than  they  are  in  France.     The   second  cause, 
and  the   main   one,  has  consisted  in   the  low  price  of 
land.     The  ease  with  which  individuals  have  been  able 
to  procure   them   farms,   and   pass   from   the    class   of 
proletaries  to  that   of  proprietors,  has  had  a  constant 
tendency  to  diminish  the  number  of  proletaries,  and 
to  raise  the  price  of  labor.     But   this  cause  becomes 
less  and  less  powerful.    Few,  comparatively  speaking, 
of  the  proletaries,  in  any  of  the  old  states,  can  ever  be- 
come land-owners.    Land  there,  is  already  too  high  for 
that.     The  new    lands    are   rapidly    receding    to    the 
west,  and  can  even  now  be  reached  only  by  the  those 
who  have  some   little  capital   in   advance.     Moreover, 
these  new  lands  are  not  inexhaustible.     Fifty  years  to 
come,  if  emigration  go  on  at  the   rate  it   has  for  fifty 


56  Descent  of  Property. 

years    past,   will  leave   very   little   for   the  new  emi- 
grant. 

\:  The  causes  removed,  which  have  hitherto  favOred 
the  working-man,  and  lessened  the  distance  between 
him  and  the  proprietor,  what  is  to  prevent  the  reproduc- 
tion here,  in  our  land  of  boasted  equality,  of  the  order 
of  things  which  now  exists  in  the  old.  world  ?  As 
yet,  that  order  does  not  exist  here  in  all  its  revolting 
details  ;  but  who  can  fail  to  see  that  there  is  a  strong 

f^endency  to  it?  Our  economical  systems  are  virtu- 
ally those   of  England;  our  passions,  our  views,  and 

J  feelings  are  similar;  and  what  is  to  prevent  the 
reproduction  of  the  same  state  of  things  in  relation 
to  our  laboring  population  with  that  which  gangrenes 
English    society?     We   confess,   we   cannot   see    any 

l^ causes  at  work  among  us  likely  to  prevent  it. 

^  The  remedies  relied  on  by  the  political  reformers 
are  free  trade,  and  universal  suffrage  ;  by  the  moral 
reformers,  universal  education,  and  religious  culture. 
We  agree  with  both,  and  sustain  them  as  far  as  they 
go ;  but  they  are  insufficient.  These  measures  are  all 
good  and  necessary;  but  inadequate,  unless  something 
more  radical  still  be  adopted  along  with  them.  Alone 
they  are  mere  palliatives.  They  may  serve  to  con- 
ceal the  sore,  perhaps  assuage  its  pain  ;  but  they  can- 
not cure  it. 

^  Universal  suffrage  is  little  better  than  a  mockery, 
where  the  voters  are  not  socially  equal.  No  matter 
what  party  you  support,  no  matter  what  men  you 
elect,  property  is  always  the  basis  of  your  govern- 
mental action.  No  policy  has  ever  yet  been  pursued 
by  our  government,  state  or  federal,  under  one  party 
or  another,  notwithstanding  our  system  of  universal 
suffrage,  which  has  had  for  its  aim  the  elevation  of 
man,  independent  of  his  relation  as  a  possessor  of 
property.  In  no  instance  have  the  rights  of  the  prole- 
tary prevailed  over  the  interests  of  the  proprietor. 
To  separate  power  from  property,  we  hold  to  be  im- 
possible under  our  present  system.  Its  interests  will 
always  predominate  in  the   measures   of  government, 


Descent  of  Property,  57 

though  they  may  sometimes  be  defeated  in  elections. 
The  interests  of  property  may  now  and  then  be  di- 
vided, as  they  were  under  General  Jackson's  ad- 
ministration. The  interests  of  the  state  banks,  and 
particularly  of  those  of  New  York,  were  then 
opposed  to  those  of  the  United  States  Bank.  The 
interests  of  landed  property  combined  with  those  of 
labor  are  now  arrayed  against  the  banks  generally; 
and  if  they  are  successful,  it  will  not  be  because  the 
interests  of  labor  count  for  anything  ;  but  because 
the  farming  and  planting  interests  are  stronger  than 
the  mercantile  and  manufacturing  interests.^/  The  pro- 
letaries, though  voters  in  this  contest,  serve  merely  to 
swell  the  forces  of  one  or  the  other  party.  They  gain 
nothing  by  the  fact  that  they  are  voters;  they  will 
gain,  however,  if  the  landed  interests  triumph ;  because, 
in  the  actual  condition  of  our  country,  the  interest" 
of  the  laborer  is  mainly  identified  with  those  of  land. 
But,  let  which  interest  will  triumph,  the  laborer  will 
gain  nothing  directly.  He  will  only  gain  so  far  as  it 
is  impossible  to  separate  his  interest  from  the  interest 
which  triumphs.  Still,  universal  suffrage  is  a  right, 
and  is  worth  something.  All  we  mean  to  say  is,  that 
in  itself,  it  by  no  means  constitutes  a  sovereign  rem- 
edy for  the  evils  under  which  the  laboring  classes 
suffer.  It  by  no  means  gives  them  that  degree  of 
political  power,  which  theorists  imagine.  To  be  ren-  ] 
dered  efficient,  it  must  be  coupled  with  something  like,' 
equality  of  fortunes.  The  proprietors  may  indeed^ 
sometimes  be  outvoted  in  an  election,  but  their  inter- 
ests will  invariably  triumph  in  the  legislative  halls, 
and  at  the  tribunals  of  justice.  At  least,  this  has 
been  the  experience  of  this  country  thus  far.  We 
will  hope  that  the  future  will  furnish  a  different  ex- 
perience. 

The  system  of  free  trade,  so  far  as  it  has  as  yet  been 
advocated  in  this  country,  we  approve,  as  a  means  of 
social  amelioration  ;  but  we  cannot  rely  on  it,  as  alone 
sufficient.  Because,  to  amount  to  much,  the  com- 
petitors must  start  even,  and  with  nearly  equal  chances 


58  Descent  of  Property. 

of  success,  which  cannot  be,  with  our   present  consti- 
t^ution  of  property,  nor,  indeed,  with  our  present  con- 
j  stitution   of  human   nature.     Moreover,  if  the   system 
^   of  free  trade  be  pushed  to  its  last   results,  it  becomes 
the  introduction  of  a  system  of  universal  competition, 
a   system   of  universal   strife,  where  each  man   is   for 
himself,  and  no  man   for   another.     It  would  be  a  re- 
turn to  the  pure  individuality  of  the  savage  state,  the 
abolition  of  all  government,  and  the   adoption,  as  the 
practical  rule  of  conduct,  of  the   maxim,  "  save  who 
can."  !  We  have  not  yet  advanced  far  enough  in  moral 
or  social  science  to  adopt  this  rule.     We  would  indeed 
y  ji  restrict  as  much  as  possible  the  sphere  of  government, 
'.   '  and  enlarge  that   of  the  individual;  but  government, 
as  the  organ  and  agent  of  society,  is  a  positive  good, 
,  ^d  can  never   be   dispensed  with.     We  have,  more- 
over, no  faith   in   bringing   about   the  social  order  we 
desire,  by  the  agency  of  selfishness  and   strife.     True 
democracy  can  never  rest  permanently  on  the  maxim, 
"I  am  as  good  as  you;"  but  it  must  resort   to  this 
other  maxim,  "  ^ou  are  as  good  as  I."     The  spirit,  by 
which  it  must  ultimately  be  sustained,  is  not  the  spirit 
that  will  not  submit  to   tyranny,  but   the  spirit  that 
will  not  tyrannize. 

In  universal  education  and  religious  culture,  we 
have  faith  indeed  ;  but  not  as  final  measures.  Their 
office  is  to  generate  the  moral  force  needed  ;  but  the 
generation  of  that  force  is  not  the  reform.  Mind  is 
undoubtedly  superior  to  matter,  and  all  reforms  must 
come  from  within  ;  but  the  mental  and  moral  reform, 
effected  in  the  interior  of  man,  will  prove  insufficient, 
unless  it  come  out  of  the  interior,  and  remodel  the 
exterior.  What  we  contend  is  not,  that  free  trade, 
universal  suffrage,  universal  education,  and  religious 
culture,  are  not  essential,  indispensable  means  to  the 
social  regeneration  we  are  in  pursuit  of;  but  that,  if 
we  stop  with  them,  and  leaye_.thejnaterial  order  of  so- 
ciety untouched,  they  will  prove  inadequate.  We  make 
no  war  on  the  political  reformer,  nor  on  the  moral  re- 
former.    Our  plan  includes  all  they  propose,  and  more 


Descent  of  Property,  59 

too.     Ours  includes  that,  without  which  theirs  would 
accomplish  little. 

With  this  view  of  the  case,  it  becomes  necessary  to 
seek  something  more  ultimate,  more  radical  than 
our  most  approved  reformers  have  as  yet  ventured 
upon.  This  something  we  have  professed  to  find  in 
the  abolition  of  hereditary  property,  a  measure  fore- 
shadowed in  the  first  number  of  this  Journal,  and  im-  ' 
plied,  at  least  in  our  own  mind,  by  almost  every  article 
we  have  ever  written  on  the  subject  of  social  reform. 
We  have  long  been  thoroughly  convinced  that,  without 
resorting  to  some  such  measure,  it  would  be  useless 
to  talk  of  social  progress,  or  to  speak  in  behalf  of  the 
laborer. 

The  doctrine  we  have  long  labored  to  maintain  is, 
that_the_wor^of  this  country  is  to  emancipate  labor, 
by  raising  up  the  laborer  from  a  mere  workman^  with- 
oiiTcapital,  to  be  a  proprietor,  and  a  workman  on  his 
own  farm,  or  in  his  own  shop.  Those  who  have  read 
our  writings,  or  listened  to  our  public  lectures  and 
addresses,  must  have  perceived  this.  In  maintaining 
this  doctrine,  we  have  been  seconded  by  not  a  few. 
We  have  been  censured  for  it  by  no  party,  and  by  no 
individuals,  save  a  few  who  have  never  accepted  the 
doctrine,  that  all  men  are  born  with  equal  rights. 

Moreover,  we  have  been  associated,  to  some  extent, 
with  a  political  party,  unsurpassed  in  this  or  any 
other  country  for  its  intelligence,  and  general  devo- 
tion to  the  good  of  mankind,  which  is  confessedly  an 
anti-monopoly  party;  in  the  language  of  one  of  its 
official  papers,  penned  by  one  of  its  brightest  orna- 
ments, and  one  of  the  most  eloquent  expounders 
of  its  creed,  "  The  party  of  equality  against  privi- 
lege." *  From  the  favor  with  which  our  own  doctrine 
has  been  received,  and  from  the  official  declaration  of 
a  great  and  powerful  party,  we  have  felt  that  we  were 
authorized  to   infer   that   a   large    portion,  at  least,  of 

*  See  the  Address  of  the  Democratic  State  Convention,  holden  at 
Worcester,  Massachusetts,  Sept.  '^0,  18.37. 
8 


60  Descent  of  Properly. 

our  countrym.en,  believe  it  the  duty  of  every  true 
American  to  labor  for  the  utter  extinction  of  all  privi- 
lege, and  for  the  complete  emancipation  of  labor  by 
raising  up  each  individual  laborer  to  be  an  indepen- 
dent proprietor. 

Now  we  would  ask,  how  is  it  possible  to  gain  the 
end  here  implied,  without  a  change  in  the  present  con- 
stitution of  property  ?  We  go  for  "  equality  against 
privilege,"  say  the  Worcester  Convention,  but  how 
can  this  be  done  without  abolishing  hereditary  .prop- 
erty ?  Hereditary  property  is  either  a  privilege  or  it 
is  not.  If  it  is  not,  if  it  confer  no  social  advantage 
on  him  who  inherits  it  over  him  who  does  not,  then 
there  can  be  no  harm  in  seeking  to  abolish  it ;  for 
what  we  propose  to  abolish  is  declared  to  be  value- 
less. If  it  be  a  privilege,  then  we  must  labor  to 
abolish  it,  or  cease  to  go  with  a  party  whose  motto  is 
"  equality  against  privilege."  But  hereditary  property, 
unless  the  amount  inherited  by  each  individual  could 
be  rendered  equal,  is  unquestionably  a  privilege.  It 
gives,  and  always  must  give,  to  one  portion  of  the 
community  an  advantage  over  the  rest,  to  which  they 
are  entitled  by  no  natural  superiority  of  intellect,  or  of 
virtue.  Will  the  public  conscience,  then,  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  tolerate  it  ?  Will  it  sanction  privilege  1 
Does  it  not  in  fact  harmonize  with  the  declaration  of 
the  Worcester  Convention,  and  therefore  necessarily 
demand  the  abolition  of  hereditary  property? 

The  American  people   may  be   mistaken   as   to   men 
and  measures,  but  we  are  confident   that  in  principle, 
w  they  will  all  assent   to   the  doctrine  of  equality.     We 

feel  confident  of  their  unanimous  support,  when  we  say 
that  all  the  members  of  the  community  should  have,  so 
far  as  society  is  concerned,  equal  chances.  But  equal 
chances  imply  equal  starting  points.  Nobody,  it  would 
seem,  could  pretend  that  where  the  points  of  departure 
were  unequal  the  chances  could  be  equal.  Do  the  young 
man  inheriting  ten  thousand  pounds,  and  the  one 
whose  inheritance  is  merely  the  gutter,  start  even? 
Have    they    equal    chances  ?     It    may    be    said    both 


yj.^^ 


Descent  of  Properly.  61 

arc  free  to  rise  as  high  as  they  can, —  one  starting 
with  ten  thousand  pounds  in  advance,  and  the  other 
starting  with  the  gutter.  But  it  might  as  well  be 
said  the  chances  of  the  eldest  son  of  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  and  those  of  the  eldest  son  of  one  of  the 
lowest  of  the  Duke's  tenants,  are  equal,  since  both 
unquestionably  are  free  to  rise  as  high  as  they  can, — 
one  starting  with  a  dukedom  in  advance,  and  the  other 
with  nothing.     But  to  pretend  this  is  mere  jesting.^ 

But  why  stop  with  hereditary  property  t  why  not 
have  hereditary  magistrates,  hereditary  professors, 
hereditary  priests,  hereditary  legislators,  hereditary 
governors,  and  an  hereditary  president  ?  Hereditary^ 
distinction,  that  is  to  say,  distinction  founded  on 
birth,  once  admitted  as  just  in  principle,  we  see  not 
how  can  you  consistently  stop  without  pushing  it  to 
its  last  consequences.  Be  this,  however,  as  it  may;  if 
society,  so  far  as  it  depends  on  her,  —  as  Americans,  to^ 
say  the  least,  very  generally  believe,  —  is  bound  to  fur- 
nish equal  chances  to  all  her  members,  hereditary 
property  must  unquestionably  be  abolished ;  unless, 
what  will  amount  to  the  same  thing,  a  plan  be  de- 
vised and  carried  into  operation,  by  which  the  portion 
inherited  by  each  shall  be  absolutely  equal. 

Again,  there  is  no  man  among  us  who  will  have  the 
hardihood    to  maintain,   in    general    thesis,    that    the 
present    horizontal    division    of  society    ought    to  be 
preserved.     No   whig  will  maintain,  we  may  presume, 
since  our  whigs  claim    to  be  more  democratic  than  the 
democrats  themselves,  that  there  ought   always  to  be 
a  class  of  proletaries  dependent  on  a  class  of  capitalA 
ists ;    nor    can  there    be  found   one  who  will  in  just\ 
so  many  words  deny  our  statement,  that  the  mission  |\ 
of  this  country  is  to  enfranchise  and  dignify  labor  by  '  | 
making  every  man  a  proprietor  and  laborer  on  his  own  \j 
capital.     Now,   starting  with  the   present  division  of 
society  into  capitalists  and  proletaries,  this  cannot  be 
done  without   abolishing   hereditary  property.     Under 
the  present  constitution  of  property,  we  have  shown, 
when  treating  of  the  condition  of  the  proletaries,  that 


V 


62  Descent  of  Property. 

individuals  from  this  class  rise,  only  by  using  the 
class  itself  as  the  lever  of  their  elevation;  conse- 
quently, all  the  individuals  of  the  class  cannot  possi- 
bly rise.  This  point  is  not  sufficiently  considered. 
Because  individuals  are  constantly  rising  from  the 
class,  it_  is  rashly  inferred  that  the  whole  class  may 
rise.  |But  in  point  of  fact  the  numbers  of  the  pro- 
letaries are  everywhere  on  the  increase.  We  see  this 
in  our  own  country ;  and  in  England  they  have  risen 
since  1800,  from  one  half  to  five  out  of  every  seven 
of  the  whole  population.  These  grand  manufacturing 
and  commercial  eslablr^ments  and  enterprises,  by 
which  so  much  w^ealth  is  produced  and  accumulated, 
have  little  other  effect  on  the  proletaries  than  the 
augmentation  of  their  number.  Assuredly,  under  our 
present  system,  the  number  of  proletaries  in  propor- 
tion to  the  proprietors  is  constantly  on  the  increase. 
How  long,  then,  will  it  take  under  this  system  to  make 
every  man  a  proprietor  ? 

The  proposition,  for  the  abolition  of  hereditary 
property,  it  follows  from  these  considerations,  is 
merely  a  logical  conclusion  from  the  admitted  prem- 
ises of  the  American  people,  and,  a  fortiori y  of  the 
democratic  party.  We  have  merely  followed  the  in- 
vincible law  of  logic  in  putting  it  forth.  We  are 
compelled,  either  to  abandon  the  American  theory  of 
government  and  society,  or  else  contend  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  hereditary  property;  and  they  who  censure  us 
as  a  rash  innovator,  and  call  us  "  infamous ''  for 
choosing  the  latter  alternative,  are  either  false  in  their 
professions  of  attachment  to  American  principles,  or 
from  two  given  ideas  incapable  of  inferring  a  third. 

Are  we  wrong  ?  What  in  one  word  is  this  American 
system  ?  Is  it  not  the  abolition  of  all  artificial  dis- 
tinctions, all  social  advantages  founded  on  birth  or 
any  other  accident,  and  leaving  every  man  to  stand  on 
his  own  feet,  for  precisely  what  God  and  nature  have 
made  him  1  Does  not  this  system  declare  that  society 
should  make  no  distinction  between  the  child  of  the 
rich  man  and  the  child  of  the  poor  man  ;  that  she  shall 


Descent  of  Property.  63 

neither  reward  the  child  for  the  virtues,  nor  punish 
him  for  the  vices  of  the  parent  ?  Is  this  the  American 
system,  yes  or  no  ?  If  it  be  not,  what  mean  all  our 
boasts  of  equality,  all  our  Fourth  of  July  oratory,  all 
our  patriotic  songs  and  national  glorifications  ?  What 
else  is  it  that  we  are  constantly  throwing  in  the  face 
of  the  old  world  ?  and  on  what  else  do  we  profess  to 
found  our  claims  to  admiration  and  imitation  ?  Every- 
body knows  that  this  is  the  system,  which  the  Ameri- 
can people  profess,  and  to  which  they  stand  committed 
before  the  world.  We  pray  them,  then,  to  tell  us  how 
with  this  system,  which  repudiates  all  distinctions 
founded  on  birth,  they  can  reconcile  hereditary  prop- 
erty, which  has  no  other  basis  than  the  accident  of 
birth  on  which  to  rest  1  The  logic  by  which  they  can 
do  it  is  above,  or  below,  our  comprehension. 

But  property   we   are   told   is   a  sacred  institutionri 
Touch  it   and  you  throw  everything  into    confusion, 
cut  society  loose  from  all  its  old  fastenings,  and  send 
us  all  back  to  the  savage   state,  to  live  by  plundering   I 
and  devouring  one  another.     So  said  the  defenders  oi 
hereditary  monarchy,  of  hereditary  nobility,  of  an  he- 
reditary    priesthood,    of    primogeniture    and    entail. 
Yet  society  survives,  and,  for  aught  we  can  see,  looks 
as  likely  for  a  long  life  as  ever  it  did.     Now,  for  our- 
selves, we  are  not  quite  so  squeamish   on   this  subject 
as  some  others   are.     We  believe  property  should  be  \ 
held  subordinate   to  man,  and   not   man   to   property;,' 
and  therefore  that  it  is    always  lawful   to  make   such  I 
modifications   of  its  constitution   as   the  good  of  Hu- \ 
manity  requires. 

But,  without  insisting  on  the  paramount  claim  of 
Humanity,  we  will  relieve  the  apprehensions  of  those 
who  pay  their  devotions  at  the  shrine  of  Mammon,  by 
hastening  to  say,  that  we  plant  ourselves  on  the 
ground  of  strict  right,  and  propose  no  changes  in  the 
constitution  of  property,  which  we  do  not  think  our- 
selves able  to  justify  on  this  ground;  nay,  none  which 
are  not  demanded  by  it. 

Man's  right  to  property  is  virtually  denied  by  the 


64  Descent  of  Property. 

Christian  clergy  generally.  They  contend  that  we  are 
merely  the  Lord's  stewards,  entrusted  with  the  manage- 
'ment  of  certain  properties,  which  we  hold  not  as  our 
own,  and  which  we  are  bound  to  employ  not  in  our  own 
service,  but  in  the  service  of  the  Church.  The  right 
is  also  denied,  by  a  certain  class  of  modern  philan- 
thropists, who  say  that  the  properly,  which  one  man 
calls  his  own,  is  not  really  his,  but  belongs  to  whom- 
soever has  the  greater  need.  These  and  the  clergy, 
however,  address  themselves  to  the  individual  con- 
science, and  not  to  the  social  conscience,  and,  there- 
fore, their  views,  whether  right  or  wrong,  come  not 
■-^C^  within  the  scope  of  our  present  inquiry.  We,  for  our- 
selves, admit  man's  right  to  property,  and  his  right, 
within  the  limits  of  the  moral  law,  to  do  what  he  will 
with  it. 

The  origin  of  the  right  to  property,  whether  viewed 
historically  or  philosophically,  is  an  interesting  branch 
of  inquiry,  but  we  cannot  treat  it  at  length  now,  nor  is 
it  necessary  for  our  present  purpose,  j  In  relation  to  its 
origin,  three  theories  have  gained  considerable  cur- 
rency. The  first,  that  of  the  jurists,  is  that  property 
is  solely  a  creature  of  political  or  civil  institutions  ; 
the  second,  which  also  finds  favor  with  some  jurists, 
but  principally  with  philosophers,  is  that  oi  first  or 
original  occupancy  ;  the  last  is  called  the  theory  of 
formation,  and  founds  the  right  of  property  on  creation, 
production. 

The  last  theory  we  admit,  to  its  fullest  extent.  A 
man  has  a  natural  right  to  call  that  his,  which  he  him- 
self, by  his  own  labor,  has  created.  But  this  is  not 
all  the  property  to  which  he  has  a  natural  right.  But 
to  what  other  property,  and  how  much,  he  has  a  natu- 
ral right,  we  shall  soon  proceed  to  inquire. 

The  first  theory  we  also  admit,  to  a  certain  extent, 
indeed  to  its  fullest  extent,  so  far  as  concerns  pres- 
ent proprietors.  The  property,  which  the  law  now 
appropriates  to  an  individual,  he  has  a  right  to  call 
his  own,  use  as  his  own,  and  keep  safe  from  the  reach 
of  the  legislature.     The  legislature  is  bound  .to  keep 


Descent  of  Property.  66 

good  faith  with  those  for  whom  it  legislates  ;  it  must 
faithfully,  scrupulously  fulfil  its  contracts.  If  it  has 
comrnitled  mistakes  with  regard  to  its  appropriations, 
it  must  abide  by  these  till  it  can  rectify  them,  without 
breaking  its  faith  with  the  individual  in  whose  favor 
they  were  committed.  Whatever  alterations,  then, 
we  would  suggest  in  regard  to  the  constitution  of 
property,  we  would  propose  none,  which  should  affect 
any  present  proprietor,  or  any  one  who  should  be  a 
proprietor  when  the  alteration  passed  into  a  law. 

But,  though  we  admit  that  the  law  gives  a  title  to 
property  good  enough  for  present  proprietors,  we  are 
very  far  from  regarding  the  law  as  ultimate,  very  far 
from  admitting  that  property  is  purely  a  creature 
of  civil  or  political  institutions,  and  that,  therefore, 
society  may  declare  what  it  will  to  be  property,  and 
adopt  what  rule  of  distribution  or  transmission  it 
pleases.  Society  is  under  law,  and  is  as  much  bound 
to  consult  the  right  as  is  the  meanest  individual,  and 
it  has  no  right  to  enact  what  rests  not  on  a  higher 
law  than  its  will  ;  what,  in  one  word,  is  not  decreed 
by  the  law  of  Nature,  or  the  will  of  God. 

The  second  theory,  which,  we  believe,  is  the  pre- 
vailing one,  and  which  has  the  most  respectable  au- 
thority in  its  support,  that  oifrst  or  original  occupan- 
cy, we  also  admit  ;  but  not  to  the  full  extent  to  which 
it  seems  to  be  admitted  by  the  authors  who  have  sup- 
ported it.  The  first  occupant  of  a  thing  or  of  a  spot 
of  land,  has  unquestionably  a  right  to  what  he  occu- 
pies, against  every  one  who  would  dispossess  him, 
provided  that  his  occupancy  be  not  a  prejudice  to 
another,  who  has  equal  claims  with  himself.  In  other 
words,  the  right  of  the  first  occupant  is  limited  by  a 
right  more  ultimate  still. 

To  render  this  plain.  Man's  right  to  the  earth,  to 
possess  it,  cultivate  it,  and  enjoy  its  fruits,  is  Divine, 
and  rests  on  the  will  of  the  Creator.  The  evidences 
of  this  are  in  the  Bible,  in  man's  constitution,  in  the 
simple  fact,  that  man  is  placed  here  under  circumstan- 
ces, which   render  his  possession  of  the  earth  indis- 


4^ 


66  Descent  of  Property. 

pensable  to  his  verysubsistence.  God  gave  the  earth 
to  the  children  of  men.  All  admit  this.  But  writers 
on  this  subject,  tell  us  that  he  gave  it  to  them  as 
common  property. 

This  last  we  deny.  We  recognise  no  such  thing  as 
common  property.  The  very  essence  of  property  is 
individual,  peculiar,  exclusive.  The  Creator  has  made 
man  with  an  original,  an  innate  sense  of  property. 
We  see  man  everywhere  appropriating  sometliing  to 
himself,  and  calling  it  his  own.  The  ideas  of  mine 
and  thine  are  among  the  earliest  developed  in  the 
human  mind.  Now  by  creating  man  with  this  innate 
sense  of  property,  and  endowing  him  with  faculties 
for  its  acquisition,  the  Creator  has  plainly  declared  it 
his  will,  that  man  should  possess  property.  "  Man," 
says  Chancellor  Kent,  "was  fitted  and  intended,  by 
the  Author  of  his  being,  for  society  and  government, 
and  for  the  acquisition  and  enjoyment  of  property." 
"  The  sense  of  property  is  inherent  in  the  human 
breast."*  We  may,  therefore,  lay  it  down  as  estab- 
lished, or  admitted,  that  man  was  created  not  to  hold 
property  in  common,  but  to  hold  individual  property, 
as  something  which  he  might  call  his  own,  and  of 
which  no  individual,  nor  society  even,  could  rightfully 
dispossess  him. 

Our  inference  from  this  is  not  that  the  earth  was 
given  to  mankind,  as  a  common  property,  but  as 
an  inheritance,  to  be  possessed  by  each  as  indi- 
vidual property.  The  question  then  comes  up,  in 
what  proportions  shall  it  be  possessed  ?  That  is,  to 
how  much  was  any  one  individual  entitled,  for  his 
share  of  the  general  inheritance  ?  To  answer  this 
question,  it  is  simply  necessary  to  ascertain  what  is 
the  relation  which  men  bear  towards  one  another  be- 
fore their  Maker,  and  what  relation  they  ought  to  bear 
towards  one  another  before  society.  Christianity  an- 
swers the  first,  and  Democracy  the  second.  As  we 
in    this    country    profess   to   be   both    Christians    and 


*  2  Kent's  Com.  Vol.  II.  p.  256. 


Descent  of  Property.  67 

Democrats,  the  answers  of  these  are  sufficiently  ulti- 
mate for  our  present  purpose. 

According  to  Christianity,  all  men  are  equal  before 
God.  This  is  the  great  truth  Christianity  has  placed 
in  the  world,  and  it  is  the  glory  of  the  Church,  that 
even  in  the  times  of  its  grossest  corruption,  it  has  al- 
ways maintained  this  truth.  God  has  made  of  one 
blood  all  the  nations  of  men.  The  Church,  therefore, 
in  its  theory,  has  admitted  no  distinction  of  race,  of 
bond  or  free,  of  rich  or  poor,  and  has  ordered  the 
same  discipline  to  prince  and  peasant,  and  read  the 
same  solemn  service  over  their  ashes.  Democracy, 
the  creature  of  this  truth,  or  indebted  to  the  activity 
of  this  truth  for  its  development,  declares  that  all  men 
are  equal  in  their  rights,  that  man  measures  man  the 
World  over. 

Now,  if  all  men  are  equal  before  God,  if  God  be  no 
respecter  of  persons,  then,  he  must  have  designed  the 
earth  to  be  possessed  by  them  in  equal  portions  ;  and 
if,  as  Democracy  asserts,  all  men  have  equal  rights, 
then  it  follows,  that  all  have  a  right  to  equal  portions.  ^ 

That   is   to  say,   according  to  both  Christianity   and  \^ 

Democracy,  every  man  had  a  right  of  property  to  a 
portion  of  the  whole,  equal  to  that  of  every  other  man. 
Divide  the  whole  by  the  number  of  men,  and  the  quo- 
tient will  be  the  amount  which  each  might  call  his 
own. 

This  is  the  abstract  right  of  property  to  the  earth  ■  \/^ 
as  God  gave  it  to  man,  and  this  is  the  right  which 
limits  the  right  of  the  Jirst  occupant.  Original  occu- 
pancy gives  to  the  first  occupant  a  right  of  property 
to  this  particular  thing,  or  this  particular  spot,  in 
preference  to  that,  provided  the  claim  thus  acquired 
do  not  stretch  over  more  than,  in  an  equal  division  of 
the  whole,  would  have  fallen  to  the  occupant's  share. 
With  this  limitation,  we  admit  the  right  of  the  first 
occupant,  and  that  occupancy  is  not  only  the  original, 
but  a  valid  title  to  property. 

Speaking  strictly,  and  keeping  in  view  the  limitations 
we  have   made,   man  has  a  right   of  property,  1.  To 
9 


68  Descent  of  Property 

that,  of  which  he  is  the  original  occupant;  2.  To  that 
which  he,  by  his  own  labor,  has  produced,  with  or  with- 
out the  aid  of  the  funds  of  production  rightfully  held  ; 
and,  3.  To  that  which  society,  by  law,  appropriates  to 
him.  This  last  title  may  not  be  good  in  morals,  but  is 
in  general  good  against  society  itself,  so  far,  at  least,  as 
concerns  the  present  proprietor  ;  for  society  has  sel- 
dom the  right  to  revoke  its  grants.  The  expectations, 
it  has  itself  formally  and  deliberately  created,  it  is 
bound  to  satisfy. 

Having  settled  what  is  property,  and  to  how  much 
a  man  may  have  a  good  title,  we  proceed  now  to  in- 
quire the  extent  of  this  title.  Is  it  unlimited,  or  has 
it  a  natural  term  of  expiration  ?  The  authorities,  we 
have  consulted  on  this  subject,  pretty  generally  agree, 
that  the  title  of  a  man  to  property  is  necessarily  ex- 
tinguished at  his  natural  death. 

"  The  title  to  property,"  says  Chancellor  Kent,  "  resting 
originally  in  occupancy,  that  title  ceased  of  course,  upon  the 
death  of  the  occupant."  * 

"  Property,  both  in  lands  and  movables,"  says  Sir  William 
Blackstone,  "  being  thus  originally,  acquired  by  the  first  taker, 
which  taking  amounts  to  a  declaration,  that  he  intends  to  ap- 
propriate the  thing  to  his  own  use,  it  remains  in  him,  by  the 
principles  of  universal  law,  till  such  time  as  he  does  some 
other  act,  which  shows  an  intention  to  abandon  it,  for  then  it 
becomes,  naturally  speaking,  publici  juris  once  more,  and  is 
liable  to  be  again  appropriated  by  the  next  occupant."  And 
again.  "  The  most  universal  and  effectual  way  of  abandon- 
ing property,  is  by  the  death  of  the  occupant ;  when  both  the 
actual  possession,  and  intention  of  keeping  possession  ceasing, 
the  property,  which  is  founded  on  such  possession  and  inten- 
tion, ought  also  to  cease  of  course.  For,  naturally  speaking, 
the  instant  a  man  ceases  to  be,  he  ceases  to  have  any  domin- 
ion ;  else,  if  he  had  a  right  to  dispose  of  his  acquisitions  one 
moment  beyond  his  life,  he  would  also  have  a  righi  to  direct 
their  disposal  for  a  million  of  ages  after  him  ;  which  would  be 
highly  absurd  and  inconvenient.  All  property^  therefore, 
must  cease  upon  death,  considering  men  as  absolute  individu- 
als, and  unconnected  with  civil  society."  t 


•  2  Kent's  Com.  26a  f  2  Black.  Com.  9, 10. 


v^ 


Descent  of  Property,  69 

Jefferson  says,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Madison,  dated 
Paris,  Sept.  6,  1789,  that  the  course  of  reflection,  in 
which  he  had  engaged  on  the  elementary  principles  of 
society,  had  convinced  him,  that  one  generation  of  men 
has  no  power  to  bind  another. 

"  I  set  out,"  he  says,  "  on  this  ground,  which  I  suppose  to 
be  self-evident,  that  the  earth  belongs  in  usufruct  to  the  living  ; 
that  the  dead  have  neither  powers  nor  rights  over  it.  The 
portion  occupied  by  any  individual  ceases  to  be  his,  when  he 
himself  ceases  to  be,  and  reverts  to  society.'*''  * 

Bentham  says  ;  "  Property  and  law  are  born  together,  and 
die  together.  Before  laws  were  made,  there  was  no  proper- 
ty ;  take  away  the  laws,  and  property  ceases."  t 

This  dictum  of  Bentham,  if  it  be  admitted,  harmo- 
nizes with  the  others  ;  by  denying  all  natural  right  to 
property,  it  leaves  the  whole  subject  open  to  the  adop- 
tion of  such  conventional  titles,  as  may  be  judged  most 
useful.  Locke's  principle  is  virtually  the  same.  He 
founds  property  on  a  primitive  contract,  which  con- 
tract is  of  course  alterable  by  consent  of  the  contract- 
ing parties. 

Mirabeau  says ;  "  It  seems  to  me  that  the  difference  be- 
tween the  right  of  a  man  to  dispose  of  his  property  during  his 
life,  and  that  of  disposing  of  it  after  his  death,  is  not  less  than 
the  difference  between  life  and  death  itself  Death  engulphs 
equally  a  man's  rights  and  himself."  —  "  The  rights  of  a  man 
in  the  fact  of  property  cannot  extend  beyond  the  term  of  his 
existence^  \  MM.  Portalis,  Tronchet,  Bigot-Premeneu,  and 
Malleville,  in  their  Preliminary  Discourse  to  the  projet  du  code 
civil,  presented  to  the  government,  24  Thermidor,  year  VIII., 
say  ;  "  The  right  of  property  in  itself  is  a  direct  institution  of 
Nature,  and  the  manner  of  its  exercise  is  an  accessory,  a 
development,  a  consequence  of  the  right  itself  But  the  right 
of  property  ends  with  the  life  of  the  proprietor.^' 

*  Memoir,  Correspondence,  &c.  Edited  by  T.  J.  Randolph,  Vol. 
III.  p.  27. 

f  Bentham.  Theory  of  Legislation.  Translated  by  R.  Hildreth. 
Vol.  I.  p.  139. 

X  Discours  de  Mirabeau  sur  PEgalite  des  partages  dans  successions 
en  ligne  direcie.  Prononc^  apr^.s  sa  inert,  par  I'eveque  d'Autun, 
M.  le  prince  Talleyrand,  a  I'Assembl^e  Nationale. 


70  Descent  of  Property. 

Here  is  a  very  respectable  string  of  authorities,  and 
some  of  them  of  great  weight  with  the  conservative 
portion  of  the  community.  Kent  and  Blackstone  can- 
not be  accused  of  ultra-radicalism,  nor  of  any  disposi- 
tion to  weaken  the  security  of  property.  The  other 
authorities,  we  trust,  will  weigh  somewhat  with  our 
democratic  friends.  The  proposition  in  our  article, 
which  gave  so  much  offence,  is  virtually  the  same 
with  Jefferson's.  He  says,  "  the  portion  occupied  by 
any  individual  ceases  to  be  his,  when  he  himself  ceas- 
es to  be,  and  reverts  to  society."  We  say,  a  man's 
"  power  over  his  property  must  cease  with  his  life, 
and  bis  property  then  become  the  property  of  the 
state,  to  be  disposed  of  by  some  equitable  law,  for  the 
use  of  the  generation  which  takes  his  place."  Jeffer- 
son merely  declares  what  is  natural  law  on  this  sub- 
ject;  and  we,  that  the  actual  arrangements  of  society 
should  be  conformed  to  that  law.  This  is  all  the 
difference  there  is  between  us  in  principle,  although 
he,  in  laying  down  the  principle,  had  one  object  in 
view,  and  we  another. 

If  there  be  any  weight  due  to  these  authorities,  the 
right  of  a  man  to  hold  and  to  control  property  ceases 
at  death.  What  was  his  property  during  life  is  no 
longer  his,  when  he  himself  no  longer  exists.  Prop- 
erty implies  an  owner,  and  it  is  not  property,  when  it 
has  no  owner.  Ownership  must  also  be  real,  not  im- 
aginary, and  demands  an  active  agency.  But  at  death, 
the  owner  ceases  to  be,  and  of  course  his  estate  is  left 
without  an  owner.  Ownership  also  implies  dominion  ; 
but,  as  Blackstone  says,  "  the  instant  a  man  ceases  to 
be,  he  ceases  to  have  any  dominion." 

We  assume  it,  then,  as  established,  that  a  man's 
natural  right  to  property  expires  at  his  death.  Then, 
it  follows,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  he  has  no  natu- 
ral right  to  dispose  of  it  by  will  or  testament,  to  be 
effective  after  his  death.  This  is  maintained  by  Jef- 
ferson. "  But  the  child,  the  legatee,  the  creditor,  takes 
it  not  by  natural  right,  but  by  a  law  of  the  society  of 


Descent  of  Property.  71 

which  he  is  a  member,  and  to  which  he  is  subject.'** 
So  Blackstone,  as  we  have  seen.  "  Else,"  says  he,  "  if 
he  had  a  right  to  dispose  of  his  acquisitions  one  mo- 
ment beyond  his  life,  he  would  also  have  the  right  to 
direct  their  disposal  for  a  million  of  ages  after  him  ; 
which  would  be  highly  absurd  and  inconvenient."  The 
testamentary  right  now  enjoyed  by  men  is  then  a  con- 
ventional and  not  a  natural  right.  The  man  has  no 
natural  right  to  dispose  of  his  property  beyond  the 
term  of  his  natural  life.  At  the  moment  of  his  de- 
cease, so  far  as  natural  right  is  concerned,  what  was 
his  property,  is  vacated,  and  stands  in  precisely  the 
same  condition  the  earth  did,  when  it  was  open  to  the 
first  occupant ;  at  least  so  far  as  relates  to  its  former 
owner. 

Whose  then  is  this  property?  Has  it  any  owner  ? 
Jefferson  says  "  it  reverts  to  society,"  and  Blackstone 
says,  "  it  becomes  publici  juris  once  more,  and  is  liable 
to  be  again  appropriated  by  the  next  occupant."  But 
by  natural  law  ought  it  not  to  descend  to  the  children 
of  the  deceased,  or  in  failure  of  these,  to  the  next  of 
kin  ?  Jefferson  says  no.  "  The  child  takes  it  not 
by  natural  right,  but  by  a  law  of  the  society  of  which 
he  is  a  member."  Blackstone  says,  "  The  right  of  in- 
heritance, or  descent  to  the  children  and  other  rela- 
tions of  the  deceased,  seems  to  have  been  allowed 
much  earlier  than  the  right  of  devising  by  testament. 
We  are  apt  to  conceive  at  first  view,  that  it  has  nature 
on  its  side;  yet  we  often  mistake  for  nature  what  we 
find  established  by  long  and  inveterate  custom.  It  is 
certainly  a  wise  and  effectual,  but  clearly  a  political, 
establishment.*  All  the  authorities  already  quoted, 
with  the  exception  of  Chancellor  Kent,  maintain  the 
doctrine  of  Blackstone  and  Jefferson.  And  to  these 
authorities  we  may  add  that  of  Montesquieu,  in  the 
Spirit  of  Laws,  and  of  the  celebrated  Pascal.  Indeed, 
this  doctrine  is  admitted  by  all  our  existing  legisla- 
tion on  the  subject.     If  the  children   and   other  rela- 

*  Memoir,  &c.  p.  28.  f  2  Black.  Com.  11. 


72  Descent  of  Property. 

tions  of  the  deceased  have  a  natural  right  to  inherit 
the  property  he  leaves,  then  the  right  of  the  proprie- 
tor to  devise  his  property  by  testament,  is  denied. 
Nature  has  determined  the  mode  in  which  the  prop- 
erty should  be  transmitted,  and  of  course  the  proprie- 
tor has  no  option  as  to  its  disposition.  Now  the  law 
in  granting  him  the  right  to  devise  by  testament  to 
whom  he  pleases,  and  even  to  disinherit  his  children, 
and  all  his  relations,  excepting  his  wife,  as  he  now 
legally  may,  evidently  denies  the  natural  right  of  the 
children  and  relations  to  inherit.  If  the  children  have 
a  natural  right  to  the  property  of  the  father,  then  the 
father  can  have  no  natural  right  to  disinherit  them, 
or  to  make  an  arbitrary  disposition  of  his  property. 

But  again,  admitting  our  American  system,  that 
blood  should  make  no  distinction,  that  society  has  no 
right  to  reward  the  child  according  to  the  merit,  nor 
'  to  punish  him  according  to  the  demerit  of  the  father, 
then  it  follows,  that  the  child  stands  in  relation  to 
the  property  of  the  father,  precisely  as  stands  any 
other  individual,  having  equal  and  only  equal  claims 
to  the  inheritance. 
r^  Chancellor  Kent  seems  to  think  that  the  descent  of 
I  property  to  the  children  and  relatives  of  the  deceased 
L"is  dictated  by  the  voice  of  nature.''  By  the  voice  of 
nature,  we  can  hardly  believe  this  eminent  jurist 
means  natural  law.  The  voice  of  nature  dictates  to  the 
parent  to  seek  the  welfare  of  the  child.  The  parental 
instinct,  which,  we  presume,  is  all  the  Chancellor 
means  by  the  voice  of  nature,  would  no  doubt  lead  the 
parent  to  distinguish  his  child,  and  that  also  to  the 
detriment  even  of  the  children  of  other  parents.  A 
case  of  this  is  recorded  in  a  law  book  of  the  very 
highest  authority.  We  mean  the  New  Testament. 
The  mother  of  Zebedee's  children  came  to  Jesus  with 
her  two  sons,  James  and  John,  and  prayed  that  they 
might  sit  with  him  in  his  kingdom,  the  one  on  his 
right  hand,  and  the  other  on  his  left.  Here  was  the 
voice  of  nature,  speaking  through  parental  instinct. 
The  answer  of  Jesus  is  the  voice  of  God  speaking  in 


Descent  of  Property.  73 

the  form  of  natural  law.  "  To  sit  on  my  right  hand 
and  on  my  left  hand  is  not  mine  to  give;  but  it  shall 
be  given  them  for  whom  it  is  prepared  of  my  Father.^^ 
That  is  to  say,  parental  affection  must  always  be  sub- 
ordinated to  the  will  of  God,  or  what  is  the  same 
thing,  to  natural  justice,  or  natural  law,  natural 
right. 

Blackstone  and  others,  although  they  abandon  the 
natural  right  of  children  to  inherit,  defend  hereditary 
property  on  the  ground  of  convenience.  They  say  it 
is  a  wise  and  effectual,  although  a  political  or  civil 
establishment.  For  our  part,  w^e  hold  society  bound  i 
to  obey  the  law  of  nature.  She  has  herself  no  law- 
making power,  and  is  bound  to  consult  and  follow,  as 
nearly  as  may  be,  the  law  enacted  by  the  Creator.  If, 
then,  we  can  show  that  God,  through  natural  law,  has 
determined  whose  and  in  what  proportions  the  prop- 
erty vacated  by  the  death  of  its  former  owner  really 
is,  we  have  no  occasion  to  resort  to  considerations  of 
convenience  or  expediency.  Whose  then  in  reality  is 
the  property  vacated  by  the  death  of  the  former  pro- 
prietor ? 

Jefferson  says,  "  it  reverts  to  society  ;  "  Blackstone, 
that  "  it  becomes  publici  juris  once  more."  We  have 
seen  that  it  belongs  not  to  its  former  owner,  for  he 
has  ceased  to  be  ;  we  have  also  seen  that  it  does  not 
belong  necessarily  to  the  children  and  relations  of  the 
deceased,  whose  claims  are  equal  and  only  equal  to 
the  claims  of  others.  Whose  then  is  it  ?  Evidently, 
it  belongs  to  society,  in  like  manner  as  the  earth  be- 
longed to  the  human  family,  when  approached  by  the, 
first  occupants.  It  then  belongs  not  to  society  as 
common  property,  to  be  possessed  by  the  whole  in 
common,  because  we  have  already  established  man's 
right  to  individual  property,  and  shown  that  common  - 
property  is  a  solecism.  The  individuals  of  whom 
society  is  composed  possess  then  the  property  not  as 
common  property,  but  have  a  right  to  it  in  severalty. 

We  have  recognised   three  titles   to  property,  first, 
original  occupancy  -,  second,  production  ;  third,  law, 


74  Descent  of  Pr&perty, 

or  the  award  of  society.  As  it  concerns  the  property 
held  by  the  second  title,  that  of  production,  we  have 
in  our  present  inquiry  nothing  to  do.  What  a  man 
produces  by  his  own  labor  is  his  own,  and  so  long  as 
he  uses  it  within  the  limits  of  the  moral  law,  it  is 
sacred,  and  must  not  be  touched  by  the  legislature, — 
except  its  quota  of  the  necessary  expenses  of  the 
state.  That  which  is  held  by  occupancy,  except  by 
occupancy  through  acknowledged  fraud,  together  with 
that  held  by  virtue  of  law,  we  would  not  touch  in  the 
case  of  any  present  proprietor,  or  in  the  case  of  any 
one  who  shall  be  a  proprietor,  at  the  time  when  the 
change  in  the  constitution  of  property  we  contend  for 
may  be  enacted  into  a  law.  Still,  all  that  amount  of 
property  held  by  the  first  and  third  titles,  we  have 
specified,  is  constantly  becoming  vacated  by  the  death 
of  proprietors.  Whose  is  this  property,  when  it  thus 
becomes  vacated,  and  who  has  the  natural  right  to 
enter  upon  it  ? 

To  help  us  answer  this  question,  let  us  distinguish 
in  theory,  which,  however,  we  shall  not  need  to  do  in 
our  practical  arrangements,  between  the  property 
actually  produced  by  the  present  generation,  and  that 
which  it  has  inherited  from  past  generations.  Now, 
these  two  classes  of  property  are  perfectly  distinct  in 
principle.  We  will  waive  the  first  class,  for  the  pres- 
ent ;  because  it  must  become,  as  it  will  with  the  next 
generation,  a  portion  of  the  second  class,  before  it 
can  become  subject  to  the  new  law,  we  would  have 
enacted  with  regard  to  property.  The  second  class 
includes  the  land,  except  so  far  as  the  labors  of  the 
present  generation  have  increased  its  value,  with  all  the 
various  funds  of  production  of  every  name  and  nature, 
all  the  accumulation  of  utilities  under  man's  material 
relations,  which  this  generation  has  inherited  from  all 
the  past.  Now,  suppose  that  this  vast  accumulation, 
this  vast  amount  of  utilities,  had  been  all  abandoned 
by  the  last  generation  at  once  ;  whose,  in  that  case, 
would  it  have  been  ?  Who  could  have  claimed  it  as 
theirs  by  right  1     Unquestionably  it  would  have  fallen 


Descent  of  Property.  75 

to  the  new  generation,  who  would  have  had  the  right 
to  enter  upon  it  as  having,  as  Blackstone  says,  be- 
come publici  juris  once  more,  and  to  appropriate  it  to 
themselves. 

But  in  what  proportions  might  it  have  been  entered 
upon,  and  appropriated  by  individuals  t  We  have  al- 
ready answered  this  question  by  fixing  the  limits  to  the 
title  of  the  first  occupant.  We  have  proved  that  the 
children  of  the  proprietor  have  no  natural  right  to  in- 
herit his  estate.  They  then  stand  in  the  same  condi- 
tion with  the  rest  of  the  generation.  We  have  no 
question  then  to  ask  concerning  the  proportions  in 
which  individuals  of  the  generation,  now  no  more, 
possessed  the  property  vacated.  The  children  of  the 
rich  and  the  poor,  therefore,  have  equal  claims  to  in- 
heritance. In  what  proportions,  then,  may  the  prop- 
erty, now  vacated  by  the  death  of  the  generation  which 
owned  it,  be  entered  upon  by  the  individuals  of  the 
generation  which  now  is  ?  If  all  men  are  equal  before/  ^^ 
God,  as  both  reason  and  Christianity  assert,  then  all] 
men  have  equal  claims,  so  far  as  this  property  may  be' 
considered  the  gift  of  God.  One  man  can  then  right- 
fully receive  no  more  for  his  share  than  falls  to  th( 
lot  of  another.  If,  again,  all  men  should  be  equal  ii 
their  rights  before  society,  as  Democracy  asserts,  and' 
as  all  Americans  profess  to  believe,  then  also  must' 
the  claims  of  all  be  admitted  to  be  equal.  Then  one! 
man  can  rightfully  appropriate  to  himself  no  morel 
than,  in  an  equal  division  of  the  whole  among  all  the 
members  of  the  new  generation,  would  be  his  share.  .   ^ 

All  will  at  once  admit  the  correctness  of  this  con- 
clusion in  the  case  we  have  supposed.  Is  it  not 
equally  correct  in  relation  to  the  case  as  it  actually 
happens  1  The  distinction  which  we  have  made  of 
property  into  two  classes  actually  exists.  The  prop- 
erty which  we  include  in  the  second  class  is  not  im- 
aginary, it  is  now  really  possessed.  But  portions  of 
this  are  daily  and  hourly  becoming  vacant,  by  the 
death  of  the  proprietor;  and  the  practical  question 
for  society  is,  How  shall  this  portion,  which  this  hour 
10 


76  Descent  of  Property. 

is  vacated  by  the  death  of  the  proprietor,  be  reap- 
propriated  ?  Surely  on  the  same  principle  that  the 
whole  should  be  reappropriated,  were  the  whole  to  be 
vacated  at  once.     This  rule  is  the  rule  of  equality. 

If  there  be  any  force  in  the  considerations  we  have 
presented,  we  have  demonstrated  that,  according  to 
natural  law,  a  man  has  no  right  over  the  property  he 
possesses,  any  longer  than  he  lives;  that  his  children 
have  no  natural  right  to  inherit  his  estate,  and  stand 
in  relation  to  it  precisely  as  the  children  of  a  stranger ; 
and  furthermore,  that  the  property  vacated  by  the 
death  of  its  former  owner,  the  individual  members  of 
society  hold  not  as  common  property,  but  in  severalty, 
and  in  equal  shares.  If  we  have  demonstrated  thus 
much,  we  have  demonstrated  all  we  undertook  to 
demonstrate.  We  have  shown  that  our  proposition  to 
abolish  hereditary  property,  and  to  dispose  of  it  by 
some  equitable  law  for  the  use  of  the  new  generation,  is 
founded  in  natuial  right,  and  is  demanded  by  the  law 
of  natural  justice. 

But  we  are  told  this  scheme  is  impracticable.  When 
we  have  demonstrated  that  a  measure  is  just,  we  have 
little  time  to  spend  in  proving  it  practicable.  Those, 
who  call  justice  impracticable,  must  remember  that  it 
is  not  us  whom  they  arraign,  but  the  Creator.  To 
our  mind,  the  measure  we  propose  is  feasible  enough, 
if  it  only  be  the  will  of  society  to  adopt  it.  But  per- 
haps Its  feasibility  does  not  strike  all  minds  as  forci- 
bly as  our  own.  We  shall  do  well  then  to  glance  a 
moment  at  what  it  is  that  we  really  propose. 

We  do  not  suppose  the  measure  can  be  carried  into 
effect  immediately  ;  we  do  not  suppose  that  society 
will  take  any  action  on  it  farther  than  to  discuss  it, 
till  more  than  one  generation  shall  pass  away;  but 
"we  will,  for  the  sake  of  illustration,  suppose  the  meas- 
ure is  to  be  immediately  enacted  into  a  law.  No 
change  is  to  be  made  affecting  any  present  proprietor, 
nor  disturbing  the  natural  expectations  raised  by  exist- 
ing laws.  The  measure  will  take  effect  only  on  such 
portions  of  property  as    become  successively  vacated 


m 


Descent  of  Property.  77 

by  the  death  of  their  owner.  These  portions  are  not 
to  become  the  property  of  society,  nor  of  the  state,  to 
be  held  by  it  as  public  property,  and  capable  of  being 
used  tor  public  purposes.  They  do  not  go  into  the 
fisc.  The  state  does  not  supplant  the  heir,  and  be- 
come the  inheritor.  But  these  portions,  as  they  become 
successively  vacated,  are  to  be  reappropriated  to  indi- 
viduals. But  they  must  be  reappropriated  to  individ- 
uals of  the  new  generation,  and  not  to  the  individuals 
of  the  old,  —  to  individuals  commencing  in  life,  not 
to  individuals  already  established. 

In  order  to  get -at  this,  say,  establish  a  system  of 
universal  education,  at  the  public  expense,  in  which 
all  the  children  of  the  community  shall  be  educated 
and  supported  by  the  community,  till  they  are  able  to 
support  themselves.  Let  this  education  be  both  gen- 
eral and  special,  embracing  what  is  commonly  under- 
stood by  education,  and  also  the  special  qualifications 
for  some  pursuit  or  calling  in  life.  When  the  educa- 
tion is  completed,  the  trade,  or  profession  acquired, 
and  the  individual  scholar  is  ready  to  establish  him- 
self in  life,  then  let  him  receive  the  portion  of  the 
property  to  be  reappropriated,  which  falls  to  his  share. 

These  individuals  will  be  constantly  coming  of  age, 
and  old  proprietors  will  be  constantly  passing  off. 
Hence,  as  property  is  vacated,  new  occupants  appear, 
and  as  new  occupants  appear,  property  is  vacated. 
The  numbers  of  those  who  die,  and  of  those  who  be- 
come of  age,  may  not,  indeed,  be  precisely  equal ;  but 
statistics  will  soon  settle  the  difference  with  sufficient 
accuracy  for  all  prr.ctical  purposes. 

In  order  to  get  at  the  proportion  due  to  each,  a 
general  valuation  as  now  of  all  the  property  of  the 
commonwealth  will  need  to  be  made.  The  general 
valuation  of  all  the  property  in  the  commonwealth 
once  fixed,  the  simple  rule  of  division  will  determine 
how  much  is  the  portion  of  the  new  occupant.  Then  a 
valuation  of  that  vacated  will  determine  how  much 
of  it  must  be  allotted  to  one  individual.  This  will 
require  about  the  same   trouble   in   taking  a  list,  and 


78/  Descent  of  Property. 

making  out  the  valuation  of  the  property  of  the  com- 
monwealth, which  is  now  required  for  the  purposes  of 
taxation. 

The  young  man,  starting  in  life,  receives  his  por- 
tion, which  serves  him  for  an  outfit,  as  a  capital  with 
which  to  commence  operations.  With  this  he  goes 
forth  into  the  world,  and  has  what  he  can  honestly 
acquire.  If  one  acquires  more  than  another,  that  is 
his  gain  ;  if  less,  that  is  his  loss.  The  property  he 
receives  to  commence  with  may  be  regarded  as  his 
share  of  the  general  inheritance.  In  receiving  an  equal 
share  with  his  co-heirs,  God  and  society  have  dealt 
equally  by  him.  In  giving,  in  this  way,  an  equal  share 
to  all  of  what  we  have  shown  belongs  in  equal  por- 
tions to  all,  society  treats  all  her  members  alike.  But, 
after  having  done  this,  which  depended  on  her,  she 
leaves  them  to  fare  according  to  their  works.  Soci- 
ety is  not  required  to  keep  them  equal,  or  to  la- 
bor to  make  them  equal.  She  is  simply  obliged  to 
treat  them  as  equals,  so  far  as  she  is  concerned.  She 
must,  in  that  which  it  belongs  to  her  to  do,  treat  them 
all  alike,  and  give  no  advantage  to  one  over  another. 
But,  if  one  can  honestly,  by  his  own  exertions,  become 
richer  than  another,  that  is  his  own  affair,  with  which 
she  has  nothing  to  do. 

It  is  no  part  of  our  plan,  that  the  idle  and  profligate 
should  fare  alike  with  the  industrious  and  thrifty. 
What  we  ask  is,  that  society  shall,  in  the  distribution 
of  that,  which  none  of  the  generation  it  concerns  have 
had  any  hand  in  producing  or  accumulating,  should 
treat  all  alike,  for  thus  far  the  claims  of  all  are  equal. 
We  ask  this  not  because  we  contend  against  inequali- 
ty of  property,  but  because  we  would  have  all  the  ine- 
qualities, which  do  or  may  obtain,  depend  not  on 
the  unequal  reappropriations  of  what  comes  down  from 
another  generation,  but  on  the  personal  character  and 
exertions  of  the  individual  proprietors.  We  have 
never  been  known  in  our  life  tor~COntend  for  equality 
of  possessions,  nor  against  inequalities  of  property. 
We  war  solely  against  the  unequal  division  which  so- 


Descent  of  Property. 


79 


ciety  makes  of  that  portion  of  the  general  wealth  of 
the  community,  which  it  is  her  office  to  distribute.  It  ] 
is  not  the  inequality  introduced  by  differences  of  char- 
acter, of  talent,  or  aptitude  for  the  accumulation  of 
property,  that  we  object  to  ;  but  that  which  is  created 
by  the  laws.  We  commend  this  distinction  to  the^ 
attention  of  our  readers  generally.  It  will  save  them 
from  much  useless  declamation.  All  we  ask  is,  that 
men  should,  so  far  as  society  is  concerned,  be  dealt 
by  as  equals,  and  after  that,  in  all  that  depends  on 
themselves,  be  treated  according  to  their  works.  It 
is  not  so  now.  Society  gives  to  the  child  of  the  rich 
man  an  estate  to  begin  with,  and  to  the  child  of  the 
poor  man  nothing.  The  property,  then,  which  we 
find  in  men's  possession,  is  not  a  just  measure  of  their 
capacity,  nor  of  their  works.  This  is  a  wrong,  and 
a  wrong  which  brings  many  others  in  its  train. 

But  we  are  told,  that  our  plan  would  bear  exceeding- 
ly hard  upon  the  widow  and  the  orphan.  As  soon  as 
a  man  dies,  the  state  takes  his  property,  and  the 
widow  and  the  orphan  must  be  sent  to  the  alms- 
house. This  objection,  we  confess,  we  had  not  antici- 
pated. It  is  formidable,  and  appeals  to  our  sensibili- 
ties ;  nevertheless,  they  who  urge  it  have  paid  but  a 
sorry  compliment  to  their  own  inventive  powers.  The 
children,  if  minors,  it  will  be  seen,  are  provided  for  in 
the  school,  where  they  fare  the  same  they  would  were 
the  father  living.  If  they  are  majors,  they  receive 
their  portion,  and  are  at  work  for  themselves,  on  their 
own  estates.  As  for  the  widow,  we  will  hope  that,  if 
young,  as  soon  as  decency  permits  her  to  lay  aside 
her  mourning  weeds,  she  will  marry  again  ;  if  old,  why, 
she  must  take  refuge  in  her  jointure.  But  seriously,  we 
would  propose  that,  in  the  reappropriation,  the  distinc- 
tion  of  sex  should  not  pJ.ayTth^e  important  part  it  does 
now.  In  all  that  concerns  property,  woman  should  share 
equally  with  man,  and  like  him  be  an  independent 
proprietor,  a  relation  which  marriage  should  not  ne- 
cessarily affect.  We  know  of  no  reason  why  the  prop- 
erty of  the  wife  should  become  that  of  the  husband, 


80  Descent  of  Property. 

any  more  than  that  the  husband's  should  become  the 
property  of  the  wife.  The  sexes  are  equal,  though 
diverse,  and  fitted  for  di^rejit.j5ph£j_es  j  but  the  idea 
of  dependence  should  never  necessarily  attach  to  the 
one  more  than  to  the  other.  Marriage,  again,  should 
never  be  regarded  as  a  mai-riage  of  estates,  but  of 
persons,  and  hearts.  jEach  should  have  the  means  of 
living  independent  of  that  relation.  Then,  in  mar- 
rfage,  man  and  woman  could  come  together  as  equals, 
and  because  they  loved  each  other,  and^  not  because 
one  or  the  other  wanted  an  estate.  Carriage  would 
then  be,  what  it  now  is  not  always,  a  sacred  in- 
stitution, and  the  relation  it  creates  'would  be  pure 
and  holy,  and  kept  by  both  sacred  and  inviolable,  as  it 
should  be.  1  But  be  this  as  it  may,  the  objection  is 
answered  ^  making  woman  an  inclependent  proprie- 
tor, in  like  manner  as  man,  and  by  establishing,  as  we 
propose,  a  system  of  education,  which  will  ensure  the 
instruction  and  maintenance  of  all  the  children  of  the 
community,  till  they  are  capable  of  maintaining  them- 
selves. 

We  are  told,  again,  that  our  proposed  reform  would 
bear  exceedingly  severe  upon  the  poor  workingmen, 
wHoTiave,  from  their  hard  earnings,  saved  a  little,  in 
the  hopes  of  leaving  it  to  their  children.  But  along 
now  comes  a  pretended  friend  of  these  workingmen, 
and  tells  them,  "No,  you  shall  not  leave  your  scanty 
savings  to  your  children,  you  love  so  well.  It  must  go 
to  the  state,  and  your  children  be  left  —  '^  ;  pray  go 
on,  and  tell  us  how  the  children  are  to  be  left  ?  Nev- 
er, for  the  sake  of  truth,  convert  your  pathos  into 
bathos.  In  the  first  place,  we  reply  to  this  objection, 
that  we  propose  our  plan  to  aid  the  children  of  these 
poor  workingmen,  not  to  injure  them.  We  say  to 
these  workingmen,  your  children  have  a  natural  and 
indefeasible  right  not  to  the  little  you  can  save  out 
of  your  necessities  to  leave  them,  but  to  an  equal  por- 
tion with  the  children  of  the  rich,  of  the  whole  proper- 
ty which  descends  from  one  generation  to  another.  How 
much  above   the  general  average   to   each  individual, 


Descent  of  Property,  81 

will  rise  the  modicum  you  can  leave  your  children? 
Will  it  not,  in  fact,  fall  below  the  general  average? 
How  much,  then,  will  your  children  lose  by  the  pro- 
posed change  in  the  transmission  and  reappropriation 
of  property  ?  The  children  of  the  rich  will  inherit 
less  than  they  now  do;  but  the  children  of  the  hard- 
working poor  will  inherit  more. 

We  are  told,  again,  that  the  proposed  change  will 
amount  to  nothing,  "because  a  man  can  give  away 
all  his  property  just  before  his  death,  and  that  gift 
society  must  respect.  In  this  way,  property  may  de- 
scend as  now."  To  this  we  answer,  first,  that  a  man 
rarely  knows  the  precise  hour  when  he  shall  die,  and, 
therefore,  death  may  surprise  him  before  he  has  made 
his  gift,  and  the  necessary  transfer  of  his  property. 
Consequently,  there  would  always  be  a  large  number 
of  cases,  that  could  not  be  affected  hy  this  objection. 
A  gift,  must  be  more  than  a  gift  in  mente  ;  it  must 
be  an  actual  delivery  of  the  property  into  the  posses- 
sion of  the  donee.  Now  there  are  many  men,  though 
they  believe  they  shall  die  soon,  who  do  by  no  means 
like  to  part  with  all  their  property  to  their  children, 
and  thus  render  themselves  wholly  dependent  in  their 
old  age.  There  are  too  many  Regans  and  Gonerils, 
and  too  few  Cordelias  in  private  life,  to  render  this 
always  prudent,  or  safe.  From  this  cause  a  large  ad- 
dition may  always  be  looked  for  to  the  number  of 
cases,  not  liable  to  be  affected  by  the  objection  we  are 
considerins:. 

In  the  second  place,  we  may  distinguish  between 
^\hs  inter  vivos,  an  A  gifts  causa  mortis.  The  first  class 
of  gifts  must  undoubtedly  be  respected  ;  but  the  sec- 
ond class,  when  made  with  the  evident  design  of  con- 
trolling the  transmission  of  one's  estate,  or  of  direct- 
ing, in  some  sense,  its  disposal  after  one's  death,  ' 
should  be  held  void,  and  revocable  at  the  will  of  soci-/ 
ety.  We  have  proved  that  a  man  has  no  right  to 
direct  the  disposal  of  his  property  for  one  moment 
after  his  death;  if,  then,  he  transfers  his  property  to 
another  before  his  death,  for  the  purpose  of  determin- 


82  Descent  of  Property. 

ing  its  descent,  he  is  seeking  to  evade  the  law,  and, 
therefore,  cannot  call  upon  society  to  respect  the 
transfer.  He  is  doing  indirectly,  what  it  is  admitted 
that  he  has  no  right  to  do  directly,  and  consequently, 
his  acts  are  fraudulent.  This  distinction  between 
gifts  made  between  the  living,  from  charitable  or  be- 
nevolent purposes,  and  those  made  with  a  view  to  a 
man's  death,  and  for  the  purpose  of  exercising  indi- 
rectly a  sort  of  dominion  after  his  death,,  is  broad  and 
obvious,  and  is  recognised,  in  principle,  very  nearly 
as  we  have  stated  it,  by  existing  laws. 

But,  it  is  said,  waiving  this  objection,  and  assum- 
ing the  practicability  of  the  proposed  change,  that  its 
effects  will  be  bad,  for  it  will  check  the  spirit  of  en- 
terprise, lessen  the  desire  for  the  accumulation  of 
property,  consequently  enervate  industry,  and  lead 
to  universal  indolence  and  pauperism.  Men  are  fruit- 
ful in  objections,  but  they  have  not  always  regard  to 
consistency  in  the  objections  they  urge.  We  have 
seemed  to  ourselves  to  hear  no  little  declamation  from 
the  pulpit,  and  elsewhere,  against  the  general  pro- 
pensity of  our  countrymen  to  get  money.  This  pro- 
pensity, we  have  been  told,  is  quite  too  strong,  and 
the  fruitful  source  of  the  greater  part  of  the  evils  with 
which  our  society  is  afflicted.  Grant,  then,  that  our 
scheme  will  check  this  propensity,  this,  instead  of 
being  an  objection,  should  be  regarded  as  a  recom- 
mendation. In  fact,  one  of  the  strongest  reasons  we 
have  for  urging  it  is,  that  it  will  check,  in  some  de- 
gree, the  action  of  the  propensity  to  accumulate. 

Looking  at  society  as  it  is,  we  cannot  fail  to  per- 
ceive, that  the  passion  for  wealth  is  quite  too  absorb- 
ing. A  large  portion  of  our  generation  pursue  it  to 
the  destruction  of  their  health,  and  the  peril  of  their 
soul's  salvation^  and  the  peace  of  the  world.  And 
why  is  it  so  ?  /Mainly,  because  the  propensity  to  ac- 
cumulate is,  in  our  present  order  of  civilization,  reio- 
forceiLby  the  love  of  indepeiidence  and  of  distinction, 
and  sanctifu'd  by  the  love  of  Offspring.  J^Vealth,  in 
the  actual  state  of  the  world,  gives  independence  and 


Descent  of  Property.  83 

distinction.     Poverty  in  itself  could   be  endured,  didl 
it  not,  in  general,  entail  neglect,  dependence,  and,  as  I 
it  were,  throw  a  man  out  of  the  pale  of  civilized  soci-l 
ety.    Hence  it  is,  men,  who  have  somewhat  of  a  manly-^ 
nature,  are  impatient  of  it,  and  will  be   guilty  of  al- 
most  any    crime,    rather   than  remain  popr.     But,  in 
a    society,    where    fortunes  are    nearly  equal,   wealth 
confers  no  distinction,  and  especially  if  all  the  childrenx 
are   brought   up   in   the  same  way,  and   at   the  same  \ 
schools,  and  have  the  same  general  manners,  cultiva-  ' 
tion,  and   refinement.     Distinction  in  such  a  society 
cannot  be  acquired  by  one's  possessions,  but  by  what 
one  is  in  oneself.    Consequently,  in  the  order  of  things 
we  propose  to  bring  about,  wealth  will   not  be  sought 
for  the  distinction  it  confers.     This  will  unquestiona- 
bly check  the  action  of  the  propensity  to  accumulate, 
to  a  considerable  extent. 

At  present  it  is  also  necessary  to  acquire  wealth,  for  ' 
the  sake  of  our  children.  We  could  get  along  very  well, 
and  find  much  time  for  mental  and  moral  culture,  were 
it  not,  that  we  must  accumulate  something  to  give  our  "^ 
children  a  start  in  the  w^orld.  Under  the  proposed 
arrangement,  anxiety  for  children  will  be  somewhat 
diminished.  We  are  sure,  let  happen  what  will,  our 
children  will  fare  as  well  as  others,  will  be  as  well 
educated,  and  always  be  able,  by  moderate  labor,  to 
sustain  themselves.  This,  again,  will  unquestionably 
diminish  the  desire  to  accumulate  wealth. 

The  desire  to  accumulate  wealth,  diminished  by  the 
removal  of  these  two  sources,  from  which  it  is  now 
constantly  recruiting  its  strength,  will,  nevertheless, 
by  no  means  be  destroyed.  The  portion,  which  will 
fall  to  the  lot  of  the  individual  on  commencing  life, 
will  by  no  means  suffice  for  his  maintenance,  without 
his  personal  exertions.  It  constitutes  merely  a  fund, 
with  which  to  commence  operations.  The  man  must 
still  work,  or  soon  starve.  Then,  again,  wealth  has 
its  positive  advantages.  It  enables  a  man  to  gather 
around  him  objects  of  taste,  of  science,  and  of  com- 
fort. It  is,  in  a  moderate  degree,  always  desirable, 
11 


84  Descent  of  Property. 

and  will  always  be  sought  with  more  or  less  avidity. 
But,  under  the  arrangement  we  propose,  it  will  be 
sought  merely  for  its  direct,  and  not  its  incidental 
advantages. 

Moreover,  man  is  an  active  being,  and  loves  action 
infinitely  more  than  repose.  Men  have  an  aversion  to 
labor,  because  now  labor  is  not  rendered  attractive, 
and  because  it  is  associated  with  ideas  of  servitude, 
dependence,  and  vulgarity.  It  is  too  often  performed 
in  solitude,  without  the  encouragement  of  warm-heart- 
ed, and  enlightened  companionship.  The  laziest  man 
among  us  will  angle  or  hunt  all  day.  Gentlemen,  fond 
of  field  sports,  often  exert  themselves  more  than  the 
common  day  laborer.  Boys,  wholly  averser  to  hard 
work,  will  yet  delight  in  still  harder  play,  j  Strip  la- 
bor of  the  degrading  ideas  now  associated  with  it, 
render  it.  as  honorable,  as  much  in  keeping  with  the 
character  of  the  gentleman,  as  fox-hunting  is  in  Eng- 
land, and  as  attractive  as  the  active  plays  of  boys, 
and  nobody  would  shun  it;  almost,  everybody  would 
delight  in  it  for  its  own  sake.  When  labor  once  comes 
to  be  performed  by  the  enlightened  and  cultivated, 
and  by  men,  who  own  the  capital  on  which  they  labor, 
it  will  be  honorable  in  the  estimation  of  all,  and  soon 
be  sought  as  an  agreeable  pastime.  The  first  two 
considerations  we  have  mentioned  will  reduce  the 
propensity  to  accumulate  within  reasonable  bounds; 
and  the  last  two  will  tend  to  keep  it  there. 

As  to  the  universal  pauperism  so  much  dreaded, 
we  have  no  fears.  The  actual  increase  of  wealth 
would  be  much  greater,  under  the  new  system,  than 
the  old  ;  because,  on  the  one  hand,  there  would  be 
less  waste,  and  on  the  other,  more  and  more  skilfully 
directed  labor  ;  for  all  would  labor,  and  all  laborers 
would  be  thoroughly  educated,  not  only  generally,  but 
specially.  This  part  of  our  subject,  we  shall  have 
another  occasion  to  discuss,  when,  in  our  next  num- 
ber, we  examine  a  recent, work  by  Mr-  Brisbafter^n 
Association.  And  we  shall  be  able  to  discuss  it  more 
at  large  then,  than  we  can  now. 


Descent  of  Property,  85 

One  more  objection  we  must  notice,  and  then  pass 
to  the  conclusion  of  this  quite  too   protracted  discus- 
sion.    We   are   told,  that   our   proposed  reforms  "will] 
break  up  the  family   relation.     The  necessity  of  such-^ 
a  result  we  do  not  see.    It  touches  no  family  instincts, 
and  in  no  case  interferes  with  the  affection  of  parents 
for   their  children,  nor  of  children   for   their  parentsv 
It  does  not  tend  to  separate  or  estrange  them.     Prop-\ 
erties  will  be  divided,  as  they  are  now.    All  the  child-  1 
ren  of  the  same  parents  will  not  always  reside  on  the/ 
homestead,  and  they  do  not  now.     What  can  be  more/ 
scattered  than  are  the  different  members  of  our  fami- 
lies, under  our  present   system  ?     We  find  ourselves 
in  a  State,  of  which  we  are  not  a  native,  and  the  State, 
in  which  we  were  educated,  was  not  the  one  in  which 
we   received  our  birth.     We    have    a   mother  in  one 
State,  a  grandmother  in  another,  a  brother  in  another, 
and  another  brother  in  a  different  State   still.     Our 
children  grow  up   here  in  New  England,  but  where 
they  will  finally  settle,  God  only  knows.     They  will 
be   scattered  abroad,  some  to  the   east,  some  to  the 
south,  some  to  the  west,  and   some   to  the  north. ;   It 
would  seem  hardly  possible  to  devise  a  system,  which 
should  more   effectually    separate    families,    than  the 
present!_\  What  bad  effect,  then,  will  our  proposition 
have  on  the  family  relation  ? 

The  family  feeling,  pride  of  family,  we  have  a  great  \ 
respect  for;  and  we  take  pleasure  in  tracing  our  own    j 
lineage  back  to  some  brave  "  cut-throat"  of  the  dark    j 
ages  ;  to  some  border  chieftain  of  Scottish   minstrel- 
sy ;  but  we  have  been  taught  by  our  religion,  and  by    ' 
our  philosophy,  that  the  family  is   subordinate  to  Hu- 
manity, and  that,  though  it  is  the  centre  of  out  affec-  \ 
tions,  and  the  sphere  in  which  lie  our  special  duties,    \ 
Stin  it  is  in  our  love  and  action  always  to  give  place 
to   mankind   at  large,  and   to  universal  justice.     Ac- 
cording to  Christianity,  the  cause  of  Humanity  is  par- 
amount to  the  claims  of  our   relations,  and  we  are  to 
regard  as   members  of  our   family,  those  who  do  the 
will  of  our  Father  in  Heaven.     That  the  arrangement 


u 


86  Conclusion. 

we  propose  -would  do  somewhat  to  break  up  the  clan- 
nish feeling,  which  prevails,  to  some  extent,  even  in 
this  country,  we  believe,  and  for  that  fea'isonwe'ivould 
effect  it  as  well  as  for  others. 

We  have  now  gone  through  with  the  principal  objec- 
tions, which  we  have  heard  urged  against  the  article  on 
the  laboring  classes,  and  offered  such  additional  obser- 
vations, as  may  enable  the  candid  to  catch  some  glimps- 
es of  our  real  views.  The  article  in  question  presup- 
posed nearly  all  that  we  had  previously  written  in  our 
Journal,  and,  of  course,  was  liable  to  be  misinterpret- 
ed by  those,  who  read  it  by  itself  alone.  This  may 
answer,  to  some  extent,  as  an  apology  for  them,  who 
have  been  quite  industrious  in  holding  us  up  to  the 
community,  as  at  war  with  Christianity,  as  opposed  to 
education,  and  especially  to  the  rights  of  property. 
We  are  happy  to  find  some  apology  for  them,  and  are 
sorry  that  we  have  not  a  more  satisfactory  one.  They 
should  have  made  themselves  acquainted  with  our 
general  views,  and  interpreted  our  particular  remarks 
by  our  general  principles,  as  laid  down  in  our  writ- 
ings. To  have  done  this,  would  have  been  no  more 
than  common  justice;  would  have  been  only  what  was 
due  to  themselves,  as  well  as  to  us.  A  moment's  re- 
flection would  have  assured  them,  that  the  conductor 
of  this  Journal  could  have  no  stronger  motives  for  pub- 
lishing false  or  dangerous  doctrines,  than  have  the 
editors  of  Ihe  newspapers,  who  have  so  liberally  abus- 
ed him.  What  motive  have  they  for  respecting  re- 
ligion, and  the  established  order  of  things,  that  he 
has  not  also  ?  He  has  his  relations  in  life  as  well  as 
they,  and,  perhaps,  as  much  at  stake.  The  world  has 
given  him  credit  for  some  literary  and  philosophical 
ability,  and  he  might,  perhaps,  would  he  follow  the 
beaten  track,  succeed  as  well  as  most  men.  He  has 
nothing  to  gain  by  publishing  unpopular  doctrines, 
and  running  athwart  popular  prejudices.  He  may 
have  some  social  feelings,  and  delight  in  friendship 
and  society  for  himself  and  family.     Why,  then,  shall 


Conclusion.  87 

he  labor  to  bring  upon  himself  censure  and  reproach, 
to  forego  all  the  common  courtesies  and  civilities  of 
civilized  life,  compel  himself  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
sort  of  moral  monster,  and  subject  himself  to  be  called  V^ 
"  infamous,"  and  "  a  ruffian  "  1  When  a  man  of  tole-  . 
rable  understanding,  of  passsble  acquaintance  with 
the  world,  and  some  little  reputation  and  standing, 
subjects  himself  voluntarily  to  all  this,  it  is  fully  as 
likely  to  be  from  a  good  motive  as  a  bad  one. 

To  listen  to  our  virtuous  newspaper  editors,  one 
would  think  that  they  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  virtue, 
patriotism,  and  religion,  and  that  all,  who  chance  to 
differ  from  them,  are  so  many  incarnate  fiends,  whose  i 
delight  is  in  overturning  all  that  is  venerable,  and  in  . 
desecrating  whatever  is  holy.  But  after  all,  who  are  -* 
these  newspaper  editors  ?  Honorable  gentlemen,  it 
may  be,  but  rarely  as  wise  as  Solomon,  or  as  devout 
as  David.  They  are,  in  general,  men  of  routine,  who 
have  some  passable  skill  in  the  use  of  the  scissors, 
and  in  stringing  together  set  words  and  phrases  ;  but 
they  are  not  men,  who  have  watched  long  for  truth, 
who  have  studied  day  and  night  to  ascertain  the 
meaning  of  what  is  passing  around  them.  They  are 
rarely  men  of  thought,  never  men  of  ideas  j  and,  what 
is  more  deplorable  still,  they  have  in  themselves  no 
measure  for  the  man,  who  does  really  think,  who  has 
ideas,  who  looks  through  society,  and  sees  what  is, 
and  what  should  be. 

What  do  these   men  understand  of  the  matters  we 
have  been  discussing  ?     Nothing,  nothing  at  all,  as 
their   criticisms   abundantly  prove.     Why  can  it  not 
occur  to  them,  that  we  may  know  as  much  of  the  mat- 
ters on  which  we  write,  as  they  do  ?     We  have  given 
years  of  intense  study  to  the  condition  of  the  laboring  ^ 
classes,  and  the  means  of  its  amelioration.     No  doubt 
we  may  err  ;   but  does  it  never  occur  to  these  sapient 
editors,  who  have  never  given  the  subject  an  hour's    i 
serious  thought,  that  we  are  no  more  liable  to  err  than    / 
they  are  ?     All  we  ask  of  them  is,  to  abandon  a  little 
of  their  arrogance,  which  by  no  means  becomes  them, 


88  Conclusion. 

and  to  think  it  possible  that,  though  they  should  die, 
some  wisdom  and  virtue  might  still  survive.  But 
enough  of  such  small  matters. 

We  have  been  accused  of  proposing  to  rob  the  rich 
of  their  estates,  and  of  proposing  to  do  it  by  physical 
force.  We  think  we  have  shown,  in  the  foregoing, 
that  ours  is  no  scheme  of  robbery  and  plunder.  We 
have  planted  ourselves  on  the  Christian  idea  of  man's 
equality  to  man,  and  on  the  innate  sense  of  justice, 
which  belongs  to  all  men.  What  we  have  demanded, 
we  have  demanded  in  the  name  of  Justice.  Show  us, 
that  what  we  demand  is  unjust,  or  that  it  is  not  in 
accordance  with  natural  right,  and  we  have  nothing 
more  to  say.  Perhaps,  however,  that  to  some,  who 
accuse  us,  the  justice  of  our  propositions  is  their  great- 
est condemnation.  There  are  people  in  the  world,  at 
least  it  is  so  said,  whose  chief  apprehensions  are,  that 
justice  may  be  done.  We  will  hope,  however,  that 
these  are  but  few,  and  that  their  number  is  daily  di- 
minishing. 

With  regard  to  physical  force,  we  have  not  much  to 
say.  We  see  an  immense  system  of  wrong  everywhere 
established,  and  everywhere  upheld.  This  system  is 
the  growth  of  a  hundred  ages,  and  is  venerable  in  the 
eyes  of  many  ;  but  it  must  be  overthrown.  Man  must 
be  free,  and  shall  be  free,  —  free  to  develop  his  lofty 
and  deathless  nature,  and  prove  himself  a  child  of  God. 
This  is  in  his  destiny.  But  how  can  he  become  thus 
free?  How  can  the  huge  system  of  accumulated 
wrongs,  under  which  he  now  groans,  be  overthrown, 
and  a  new  and  better  system  introduced  and  estab- 
lished ?  Peaceably?  We  would  fain  hope  so;  but 
we  fear  not.  We  are  well  assured  of  one  thing ;  that 
the  reform  party  will  not  be  the  first  to  take  up  arms. 
It  will  proceed  calmly  and  peaceably,  but  energetically 
to  its  work.  It  will  use  no  arms  but  those  of  the  in- 
tellect and  the  heart.  It  fixes  its  eye  on  Justice,  and 
marches  steadily  towards  its  realization.  Will  the 
conservatives  yield  up  peaceably  their  exclusive  priv- 
ileges?    Will  they  consent  that  justice  shall  be  real- 


Conclusion.  89 

ized  ?  If  so,  there  will  be  no  war.  But  we  think  we 
know  the  conservatives  too  well  to  believe  this.  A 
party  that  could  collect  together  in  this  city,  by  hun- 
dreds, to  mob  a  poor  itinerant  lecturer,  and  by  thou- 
sands to  consult  on  demolishing  the  post-office,  be- 
cause the  postmaster  insisted  on  obeying  the  laws, 
we  do  not  believe  will  suffer  the  reform  party  to  pro- 
ceed quietly  to  the  realization  of  its  hopes.  Thej 
proletaries  will  never  resort  to  physical  force;  but 
that  the  masters  may,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the 
proletaries  in  their  present  condition,  we  must  be- 
lieve, till  we  have  some  evidence  to  the  contrary. 
They  have  already  threatened  it  here.  Distinguished 
members  of  Congress  have  said  publicly,  that  they 
would  resort  to  force,  if  necessary,  to  effect  a  change 
in  the  policy  of  the  Federal  Administration,  in  case 
they  should  fail  in  their  efforts  to  elect  General  Harri- 
son to  the  Presidency.  And  what  in  England,  in 
France,  throughout  all  Europe,  but  armed  soldiery, 
sustains  the  existing  order  of  things  ?  We  know  the 
conservative  spirit.  It  fights  against  all  reforms  ;  it 
would  hold  the  human  race  back  to  the  past,  and  never-, 
suffer  it  to  take  a  single  step  forward.  Hitherto,  it 
has  been  only  on  the  battle-field;  a  Marathon,  a  Pla- 
tea,  a  Marston  Moor,  a  Naseby,  a  Bunker's  Hill,  a 
Saratoga,  or  a  Yorktown,  that  Humanity  has  con- 
quered her  power  to  advance.  The  Past  has  always  - 
stood  in  the  gate,  and  forbid  the  Future  to  enter;  and 
it  has  been  only  in  mortal  encounter,  that  the  Future 
has  as  yet  ever  been  able  to  force  its  entrance.  It 
may  be  different  in  the  future  ;  we  hope  it  will  be.  We 
would  rather  be  found,  on  this  subject,  a  false  prophet 
than  a  true  one.  But  we  fear  the  age  of  peace  has 
not  yet  dawned.  Commerce  has  indeed  spread  her 
meshes  all  over  the  world,  but  she  cannot  hold  it  | 
quiet.  We  need  but  glance  at  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  J 
and  even  our  own  country,  at  the  present  moment,  to 
see  that  no  permanent  peace  has  as  yet  been  estab- 
lished. Everywhere  are  warlike  preparations  going 
on,  and  our  speculators  are  already  beginning  to  count 


90  Conclusion. 

on  their  means  of  turning  the  coming  contest  to  their 
own  profit.  If  a  general  war  should  now  break  out, 
it  will  involve  all  quarters  of  the  globe,  and  it  will  be 
in  the  end  more  than  a  war  between  nations.  It  will 
resolve  itself  into  a  social  war,  a  war  between  two  social 
elements  ;  between  the  aristocracy  and  the  democracy, 
between  the  people  and  their  masters.  It  will  be  a 
terrible  war  !  Already  does  it  lower  on  the  horizon, 
and,  though  th^  storm  may  be  long  in  gathering,  it 
will  roll  in  massy  folds  over  the  whole  heavens,  and 
break  in  fury  upon  the  earth.  Stay  it,  ye  who  can. 
For  ourselves,  we  merely  stand"  on  the  watch-towers, 
and  report  what  we  see.  Would  that  we  had  a  dif- 
ferent report.  But  the  war,  if  it  comes,  will  not  be 
brought  about  by  reformers,  but  by  conservatives,  in 
order  to  keep  the  people  out  of  their  rights ;  and  on 
the  heads  of  conservatives,  then,  must  fall  the  blame. 
A  powerful  effort  has  been  made,  by  the  leaders  of 
a  political  party,  to  use  our  article  on  the  laboring 
classes  to  the  prejudice  of  the  present  administration. 
It  has  endeavored  to  make  the  administration  and  its 
friends  responsible  for  our  doctrines.  If  the  whig 
leaders  had  presented  our  doctrines  truly,  and  then 
said  that  these  doctrines  are  the  simple  logical  re- 
sults of  the  acknowledged  principles  of  the  democrat- 
ic party,  we  should  have  been  content,  for  we  say  as 
much  ourselves.  What  we  complain  of  in  our  whig 
friends,  is  their  gross  perversion  of  our  views,  and 
after  having,  by  misrepresentation  or  misinterpreta- 
tion, concocted  a  set  of  doctrines,  as  abhorrent  to 
us  as  to  themselves,  then  charging  those  "  horrible 
doctrines"  upon  the  administration.  The  doctrines, 
published  in  whig  newspapers  and  electioneering 
hand-bills,  resemble  ours  about  as  much  as  night  re- 
sembles day.  They  are,  in  fact,  not  sufficiently  like 
ours  to  be  their  caricatures.  It  is  obviously  unjust, 
then,  to  charge  these  doctrines,  either  upon  us,  or  upon 
our  political  friends.  Of  this  injustice,  the  whigs 
have  been  guilty.  But,  it  is  no  matter.  The  truth 
generally  comes  out  at  last,  and  they,  who  have  mis- 


Conclusion.  9i 

represented  it,  or  sought  to  keep  it  back,  are  in  gen- 
eral the  principal  sufferers.  We  would  much  rather 
be  slandered  than  slander,  be  lied  about  than  lie. 
Perhaps  the  day  will  come,  when  politicians  will  learn 
to  feel  the  same,  and  that  a  man  is  bound  to  carry  into 
all  his  political  discussions  and  exertions,  the  same 
candor,  sincerity,  and  strict  integrity,  generally  in- 
sisted on  as  requisite  in  private  life. 

The  abolition  of  hereditary  property  is  admeasure 
we  have  contemplated  for  a  long  time.  We  expected 
to  be  censured  for  proposing  it ;  but  we  confess  that 
we  did  not  expect  to  find  our  countrymen  quite  so 
much  surprised  by  its  novelty.  The  question  has 
been  discussed  before  ;  but  our  countrymen  seem  not 
to  have  known  it,  probably  because  it  was  not  dis- 
cussed in  England.  However,  some  questions  are 
discussed  out  of  England  ;  for  there  is  some  little  in- 
tellectual, and,  perhaps,  moral  power,  besides  what  is 
indigenous  in  the  Island  of  Great  Britain.  We  ex- 
pected the  proposition  would  startle  ;  but  we  confess 
that  we  did  not  expect  to  find  people  uniting  to  con- 
demn what  each  one,  taken  singly,  will  uphold.  We 
have  never  met  a  man  who  would  not  say,  that  he  be- 
lieved it  a  serious  injury  to  a  young  man  to  inherit  a 
fortune.  We  have  heard  our  rich  men,  very  general- 
ly, remark,  that  they  regard  it  as  by  no  means  desira- 
ble to  leave  a  large  inheritance  to  their  children.  We 
have  often  been  told  by  rich  men,  when  we  have  refer- 
red to  the  destitute  situation  in  which  we  ourselves  ^ 
were  left,  when  quite  young,  that  our  "  poverty  was  the  / 
richest  legacy  our  father  could  have  left  us."  Now,  here 
is  admitted  nearly  all  we  contend  for.  We  believe  it 
a  serious  injury  to  inherit  a  fortune,  but  to  receive  on 
setting  out  in  life  a  moderate  capital,  as  a  ground  on 
which  our  industry  may  display  itself,  we  hold  to  be 
highly  desirable.  Our  plan  avoids  the  evil  and  secures 
the  good. 

Some  have   undertaken  to   accuse  us  of  borrowing 
our   notions    from    the    French    Radicals.      The    first 
knowledge  we  had  of  the  views  of  the  French  Radi- 
12 


92  Conclusion. 

cals,  we  obtained  from  their  exhibition,  as  the  original 
•from  which  we  copied.  Our  countrymen  dislike  what- 
ever is  French,  and  our  conservatives  like  whatever  is 
English.  We  will  close  this  article,  therefore,  by 
subjoining  a  document,  placed  in  our  hands  a  few 
days  since,  by  a  gentleman  from  Liverpool.  The  doc- 
ument appears  to  be  a  sort  of  circular,  sent  out  by  an 
association,  composed,  we  believe,  of  gentlemen  of 
some  eminence.  The  proposition  it  contains  is  as 
bold  as  ours,  although,  in  some  important  features, 
quite  different.  It  may  be  well  to  add,  that  the  doc- 
trine of  this  circular  has  been  substantially  advocated 
by  one  of  the  London  Quarterly  Reviews.  As  it 
comes  from  England,  we  have  no  doubt  that  it  will  be 
quite  acceptable  to  our  conservative  friends,  who,  just 
at  this  moment,  are  doing,  consciously  or  unconscious- 
ly, their  utmost,  to  bring  this  country  into  subjection 
to  the  English  bankers  and  stock-jobbers. 

Editor. 

No.  2,  BY  THE  Land  Redemption  Society. 

The  flagrant  injustice  of  the  Corn  Laws  will  induce  the  people  to 
look  more  closely  into  first  principles  than  they  have  ever  done  as 
yet.  —  Morgan. 

The  Land  of  England  belongs  to  the  People  of 
England. 

For  God  said,  let  us  make  man  in  our  image  afler  our  likeness,  and  let 
them*  have  dominion  over  all  the  earth.  —  Genesis. 

And  land  shall  not  be  sold  forever,  for  the  land  is  mine,  saith  the 
Lord.  —  Leviticus,  xxv.  23. 

The  riches  of  a  state  arise  from  the  labor  of  the  people.  —  Montes- 
quieu. 

The  state  owes  to  every  citizen  a  proper  nourishment,  convenient 
clothing,  and  a  kind  of  life  compatible  with  health.  —  Montesquieu. 

Labor  is  the  source  of  wealth,  it  is  the  source  of  the  revenue  of  the 
state,  and  of  the  rents  of  the  landlords.  —  Thompson. 

There  is  no  foundation  in  nature,  or  natural  law,  why  a  set  of  words  on 
parchment  should  give  to  any  one  the  dominion  of  land.  —  Black- 
stone. 

No  one  is  able  to  produce  a  charter  from  heaven,  or  has  any  better  title 
to  a  particular  possession  of  land  than  his  neighbor.  —  Paley. 

_-3l ^ 

*  God  said  them,  and  not  a  portion,  or  particular  caste,  or  body  of 
them,  sailed  landlords. 


Conclusion,  93 

Sic  V08  non  vobis  mellificatis,  apes.  —  Virgil. 

Havo  tlio  landlords  dominion  in  their  lands?  or  do  they  lawfully  pos- 
sess only  the  use  of  them  ?  Can  they  do  what  ihcy  like  with  tlicir 
lands  ?  —  CoBBETT. 

If  the  land  of  England  does  not  belong  to  the  people  of 
England,  to  whom  does  it  belong.? 

Is  it  not  evident,  that  if  the  air  could  have  been  appropriat- 
ed, it  would  have  been  parcelled  out  like  the  land  ? 

Is  not  land  the  immediate  gift  of  God,  like  air  or  water  .''  * 
Is  it  not  different  from  all  other  things  useful  to  man,  seeing 
that  it  is  not  the  product  of  industry  ? 

In  thickly-peopled  countries,  heavy  rents  are  demanded  from 
labor  ;  these  rents  are  spent  chiefly  in  ostentation,  riotous  ex- 
cess, debauchery,  and  gambling.  In  proportion  as  a  nation 
becomes  skilful  and  numerous,  does  rent  or  the  monopoly  price 
of  land  increase,  thus  supplying  more  ample  funds  for  the  land- 
lord's follies.f 

What  do  we  propose  ?  Is  it  to  take  land  from  one  individ- 
ual, and  give  it  to  another  ?  No.  Is  it  to  rob  the  living  pos- 
sessors ?     No.     Might  not  the  following  plan  be  adopted  .? 

COULD  NOT  THE  STATE  HOLD  THE  LAND  FOR 
THE  BENEFIT  OF  ALL  ? 

MIGHT  NOT  COMMISSIONERS  BE  ELECTED,  IN 
WHOM  ALL  LAND  MIGHT  BE   VESTED.?  J 

MIGHT  NOT  THE  PARLIAMENTARY  VOTERS 
ELECT  THESE  COMMISSIONERS  ?  § 

Might  not  the  rental  of  the  land  in  England,  (on  the  death 

*  Rent  paid  to  water  companies  is  for  steam  engines,  pipes,  &c.,  not 
for  the  water. 

I  Taxation  may  be  reduced  as  population  and  wealth  increase,  but 
rent  must  rise  and  become  a  most  serious  tax  on  labor  in  thickly-peo- 
pled countries.  Rent  being  the  creation  of  the  industry  of  all,  must  be 
devoted  to  the  benefit  of  all.  At  home,  and  in  our  colonies,  the  fee 
simple  of  the  land  is  sold  forever  and  ever;  now,  no  generation  can 
sell  the  land  forever,  as  the  land  belongs  to  the  next  generation,  when 
it  grows  up  to  manhood. 

t  This  is  not  new.  In  Liverpool,  the  rental  of  the  town,  (the  cor- 
porate estate,)  belongs  to  the  public,  (the  municipal  voters,)  who  elect 
commissioners,  (town  councillors,)  every  year.  This  estate,  £50,000 
per  annum,  is  devoted  by  law  to  the  public  good  ;  as  also  are  crown 
lands,  estates  of  the  Greenwich  Hospital,  of  the  Universities,  &c. 

§  The  tenure  of  land  is  of  more  importance  than  political  institu- 
tions. If  taxation  were  annihilated  to-morrow,  rent  would  exist  and 
increase.  In  America,  where  population  increases,  land  will  become 
more  valuable,  and  a  landed  aristocracy  will  come  into  existence,  who 
will  constantly  be  plotting  against  popular  rights.  The  present  absurd 
tenure  of  land  in  the  United  States  will  overthrow  their  otherwise 
excellent  political  constitution. 


94  Conclusion. 

of  the  present  holders,  and  their  sons  born  before  a  given  date,) 
be  spent  on  * 

1.  Education  —  of  all,  without  distinction  of  rank  or  sect. 

2.  On  Communication  —  railroads,  harbors,  &c. 

3.  On  Defence — army,  navy,  policc.t 

4.  On  Justice  —  on  courts  of  law,  always  open,  and  with- 
out charge. 

5.  On  Recreation — gardens,  museums,  theatres,  libra- 
ries ;  on  improvements  of  towns  and  villages. 

6.  On  Emigration  —  fitting  out  first  rate  vessels  to  carry 
out  those  desirous  of  trying  their  fortunes  in  a  new  land,  free 
of  charge. 

Would  not  this  expenditure  of  rent  be  better  than  its  pres- 
ent appropriation  to  the  absurd  caprices,  vicious  indulgencies, 
and  gambling  propensities  of  our  landed  aristocracy  ?  f 

Is  it  not  the  fact,  that  previous  to  Cromwell,  the  landlords 
held  the  land  of  the  King,  as  representative  of  the  state?  Our 
proposition,  then,  is  not  a  novelty,  but  a  return  to  an  old  sys- 
tem. 

The  earth  and  its  products  belong  to  the  living,  and  not  to 
the  dead  ;  therefore  no  man  has  a  ri^ht  to  dictate  the  posses- 
sion of  the  land  after  his  death.  The  law  allows  him  ;  but 
our  proposal  is  to  alter  the  law. 

*  The  right  to  leave  land  to  nephews  or  more  distant  heirs,  to  be 
abolished  at  once,  or  in  a  few  years. 

t  Taxation  would  thus  merge  into  rent.  Rent  we  cannot  destroy, 
any  more  than  wages  or  profits;  we  can,  however,  appropriate  it  to 
the  sf;ite.  The  discovery  of  the  great  principle  of  representation  ren- 
ders this  possible  and  easy. 

t  Last  year,  a  young  nobleman  retired  to  Boulogne,  after  gambling 
away  JCH.OOJ  per  annum,  (the  earnings  of  hundr«!ds  of  tenantry,  and 
thousands  of  laborers)  ;  a  Duke  is  buildmg  a  conservatory  covering  an 
acre  of  ground  ;  and  another  with  £'21)0,000  a  year,  is  going  to  the 
continent  to  recruit;  a  third,  in  Siatfordshire,  is  wasting  the  hard- 
earned  rents  of  his  tenantry  in  the  most  whimsical  conceits. 


14  DAY  USE 

This  book  ^J^l^X^^o  ^ic^r^^^d. 
Renewed 

ToJun'i 


jgXojasB-dJ.^ 

0  ^^^ 


— RECTTLD 


LD21A-40»»11;'^^^3 


MttI 


M180579 


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THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


■-lis 


